Re: USAGE: 'born'

On 10 May, David Peterson wrote:

In a message dated 5/9/01 2:08:01 PM, fortytwo@GDN.NET writes:

<< "Becoming" means "attractive"?

Anyway, I think the author is using "become" to simply mean "change",
i.e., "The city is becoming [something]".  Look at the next sentence,
"... what it's becoming". >>

    It certainly does mean "attractive", and I don't think any English
allows
the second usage.  Unless, of course, the sentence before it is "I don't
know
what the city's...", or something like that.


    The part of the article I quoted was discussing the
unrestrained growth of Phoenix, Arizona. I don't think
that the author was thinking about the city's beauty.
To fill in the previous sentence and a half:

"Phonix is a boomtown where nearly a quarter
of the children live in poverty.
    If there's any one thing that distinguishes Phoenix,
it's that the city is still becoming. There may be arguments
as to what it's becoming..."

    "Becoming" is thus connected with "boomtown", signifying
change, not beauty.

OTOH, I think that it's highly likely that the phrase about
giving birth to itself was inspired by the name of the place:
the phoenix being, IIRC, a mythological bird that, if burned to
death, could rise reborn from its own ashes.

Dan Sulani

--------------------------------------------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

Reply