44
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Accepted
When to bemoan and when to moan
"Bemoan" is a transitive verb which takes an object so you can "Bemoan your fate" but not just "Bemoan" in the abstract or "Bemoan about your fate".
"Moan", however, as an intransitive verb which ...
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44
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
There is one. No one uses it.
invalue, v.²
transitive. To make valuable; to give value to.
Literally no one. The OED notes that, as far as it can tell, it has only shown up in dictionaries glossing ...
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36
votes
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Is "create new" not pleonastic?
Create a new something is not always redundant. Even if it is slightly, it definitely connects the new created thing with what existed before it.
For example, if you read:
I am asked to create a ...
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13
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
endear (historically)
I've had to think of a popular answer that I had once given - before closing my account - on StackExchange :
Why do Russians call their women expensive (“дорогая”)?
In Old ...
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10
votes
Literary devices and sentence structure in Matthew 7:1 (KJV)
The literary device at play in your cited verse is parallelism, much stricter in the original Koiné:
Μὴ κρίνετε ἵνα μὴ κριθῆτε
mē krinete hina mē krithēte
Not (y’all) judge so that not (y’all) should ...
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10
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Is the askee the direct object or is what's asked about the direct object?
When you have a ditransitive verb (one that takes two objects) in English, and you can write
Subject verb object1 object2,
then object2 is always the direct object. When you put the direct before ...
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9
votes
When to bemoan and when to moan
As suggested in the following extract bemoan is a transitive verb whose object is generally an abstract concept (absence, lack, failure etc.) while moan is an intransitive verb:
Bemoan is one of a ...
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9
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
This is a good question, I think "Enhance" would be applicable in a lot of situations, though not a lot different to "Enrich".
Interestingly for the opposite action of devaluing ...
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9
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
It's a hapax legomenon only attested once and formed by analogy with cheapen, but
worthen
To give worth to; value; make or become worth or worthy; appraise. (via Wiktionary)
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9
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
The OED says it's a US usage, but appreciate should work just fine for you:
Originally U.S. Opposed to depreciate.
a. transitive. To raise in value.
They even give an example that fits your "[...
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8
votes
Accepted
What is it called when I poop the dog?
This is called transitivization, where an intransitive verb is turned around and made transitive. We're also making the subject the object.
This workshop paper from Ellenbas, Mondorf, et. al. at ...
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8
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Mnemotechnic approach to identifying transitive vs verb-adjective constructs
Attempting to analyse sentences in isolation runs counter to what language as a system of communication is. There is no way to disambiguate the plant has buried leaves without further context and/or ...
8
votes
Literary devices and sentence structure in Matthew 7:1 (KJV)
Transitivity of "judge not"
Webster's 1828 cites this verse as an example of the transitive form of the verb judge¹:
JUDGE, verb transitive
To censure rashly; to pass severe ...
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8
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Literary devices and sentence structure in Matthew 7:1 (KJV)
KariG's answer is very important, though the questioner does not have ready access to it.
The original Greek has absolutely no literary device. It is plain Greek. Translating into the same plain ...
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8
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Does using a preposition phrase instead of a direct object change the transitivity of a verb?
Short answer
The book takes the principled position that a noun phrase following a preposition is a Complement of that preposition, not an Object or other Complement of the verb. For that reason, the ...
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7
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
As tchrist (please correct me if I'm mistaken) mentioned in a comment, envalue is a word that, while not recorded in any dictionary, has seen actual use over the last hundred years and more with a ...
- 11.1k
7
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Is "create new" not pleonastic?
It is pretty much idiomatic and the usage goes far back, as early as 1540 per the earliest citation in OED where it was used as create a new (something). OED lists the sense of the verb create for ...
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6
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How to use "allow to do something" without mentioning a person?
Your unedited question had a French sentence in it that I interpret as:
Our software XYZ allows the resizing and conversion of PNG images.
Please note that the edit appears to have changed convert ...
- 3,628
6
votes
Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
A common verb for this is endow. To be endowed is to be gifted with good attributes, properties, possessions and such. This is related to the noun dowry, which is essentially value added to a bride. ...
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6
votes
Is the "assemble" a transitive or intransitive verb in "The shelves are easy to assemble"?
The shelves are easy to assemble
exemplifies what is known as tough movement in formal grammar:
In formal syntax, tough movement refers to sentences in which the
syntactic subject of the main verb ...
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5
votes
Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
exalt
To raise to a higher class, a higher degree of value or excellence; to dignify, ennoble. [According to definition e. of the OED]
1711 R. Steele Spectator No. 4. ⁋8 I shall not lower but ...
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5
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Is the "assemble" a transitive or intransitive verb in "The shelves are easy to assemble"?
This is a case of adjective complementatrion (A Comprehensive Grammar of the English language, Quirk et al, 1985).
(CoGEl § 16.68) Adjective complementation
Categories of complementation in adjective ...
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4
votes
Accepted
Is “bescumber” transitive or intransitive?
To bescumber, to scumber, scummerings, to discumber
Becumber is normally transitive — or at least, can be.
But you shouldn’t use it in casual, non-dialectal speech unless you’re being deliberately ...
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4
votes
Accepted
Can "procrastinate" be a transitive verb?
Transitive
In the 19th century and before, the transitive use of procrastinate in the sense ‘delay, postpone’ is quite frequent:
This motion was opposed as tending to procrastinate the funding ...
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4
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When to bemoan and when to moan
Besides the already mentioned transitive/intransitive difference, another difference is that the word moan is usually associated with making an audible noise, whereas this is not the case with bemoan.
...
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4
votes
Go Transitive or Intransitive
Let's go fishing.
Yes, "go" is intransitive here, and "fishing" is a verb, not a noun.
It's essentially a catenative construction.
1st person inclusive let-imperatives contain the ...
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4
votes
Accepted
Why is "He climbed the mountain up" incorrect?
Short answer
The Original Poster is 100% absolutely correct that if up was an adverb functioning as an Adjunct (read Adverbial), it should be able to come after the Direct Object. However, it is not ...
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4
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Does using a preposition phrase instead of a direct object change the transitivity of a verb?
Intransitive verbs have no objects, only a subject.
Transitive verbs have a subject, and a direct object.
Ditransitive (or bitransitive) verbs have a subject, and a direct object, and also an indirect ...
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3
votes
Accepted
Transitive use of suicide
I don't think the users of this site really have much ability to answer the question "Is the transitive usage of suicide grammatical and commonly acceptable?"
"X was suicided by Y" doesn't violate ...
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