Timeline for Can one be "looking" surprised? [duplicate]
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| Nov 20, 2016 at 14:34 | history | closed |
Edwin Ashworth Drew jimm101 user66974 curiousdannii |
Duplicate of Rule for if a verb can take -ing (simple present vs present cont.)? eg. I love vs I am loving | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 9:39 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Are you suggesting that we should have a grammar (etc) czar, or elected president? It's the people, not the academics, who ultimately drive acceptability in English. And though inertia is probably a characteristic of all of us, there are few who insist on using say Chaucerian English. It's good to realise that we all compromise on the prescriptivist / descriptivist issue. And that we all wish that others would use exactly the same compromise. | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 9:13 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Sadly(?), English is an inexact whatever. Quirk and Svartvik postulated a gradience of acceptability for structures (they asked a usage panel of linguists and if 67% thought a sentence was acceptable, it would be put in the 'B' (60% - 80%) category say). But what do you do if Q&S class 'Hillary Clinton is still looking surprised, not to say shocked!' as B but 'Hello, Hillary – you are looking surprised to see me.' as D? And that's just two examples. | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 8:58 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Noah's and Ben's examples above are totally idiomatic. There are situations where 'is looking' (sense of 'appear') works fine, and others where it approaches unacceptability. A full treatment of this particular example would probably require a dissertation. | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 8:58 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 20, 2016 at 14:34 | |||||
| Nov 19, 2016 at 8:57 | comment | added | michael_timofeev | @EdwinAshworth yes so maybe someone like Lawler will weigh in and create an answer that can be pointed to in the future. | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 8:55 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Rathony's answer below is hard to improve upon. But the whole stative/active ... punctive/progressive issue needs to be collated. | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 8:34 | comment | added | BoldBen | @Noah Very good example, journalists use this form all the time. Hillary Clinton is still looking surprised, not to say shocked! | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 8:28 | comment | added | Noah | "Donold B. Lourie is looking great. He is identifiable from a distance of 50 feet: His ears seem more prominent than ever. He is chatting with one of his classmates, grinning the famous Lourie grin: all-American, but modest." | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 7:13 | answer | added | user140086 | timeline score: 3 | |
| Nov 19, 2016 at 3:41 | history | edited | tchrist♦ |
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| Nov 19, 2016 at 3:20 | history | asked | michael_timofeev | CC BY-SA 3.0 |