Re: USAGE: 'born'

> Hmmm.  Let's look at that first quoted sentence first:
> "...the city is still becoming."  Since there's no object,
> what we have here is either an intransitive verb that
> isn't in my dictionary, or else a copula ("is") plus an
> adjective ("becoming").  As an adjective, "becoming"
> means attractive, so the sentence then means that the
> city hasn't yet lost its attractiveness.
Au contraire.  It's quite easy and IMHO perfectly acceptable for English
to transitivize or detransitivize all sorts of verbs, regardless of
whether or not your dictionary has them.  I interpret "becoming" as a
slightly odd, but otherwise comprehensible intransitive use of the word
"become." (Since it was the whole transitive/intransitive thing that
started this off anyway . . .)


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton