Transitive marvel wonders reader
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From J.M.:
Am I misreading this cryptic headline (I do confess my severe deficiency of "urban cool"), or has "marvel" become a transitive verb, a synonym for "amaze"? "Rihanna front row as Wang urban cool marvels New York", AFP 9/7/2014.
In fact, this is Old (well, at least Middle or Early Modern English) News. From the OED, sense 6. "To cause to wonder; to astonish; to stupefy":
a1425 (▸?c1375) Barlaam & Josaphat (Harl.) 260 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1875) 1st Ser. 229 Þis meteyng meruaild all his mode.
▸a1470 Malory Morte Darthur (Winch. Coll. 13) (1990) II. 941 One thynge mervaylith me muche.
a1475 tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl.) II. 369 (MED), There were iij sustyrs as of oon pulcritude, whiche meruaylede theire beholders.
1567 in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. vii. 15 It dois merwell me Quhat causit hes the Lordis of Scotland Tak on ane enterpryse of sic folie.
[…]
1912 E. T. Thurston Antagonists xi. 89 It marvelled Christina that it should have lasted with Dicky as it did.
So Wang marvelling New York is more of a throwback, even if the headline writer thought of it as a hip innovation.
If "verbing weirds language", English is pretty thoroughly weirded by now.
Jerry Friedman said,
September 7, 2014 @ 4:42 pm
It could be a hip throwback.
"But anyone who's played both Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider III can tell you which game totally marvels them with solid realism, spot-on controls, and a variety of mind-numbing puzzles." Review from 1999
"The setting marveled them with a brilliant ocean of shimmering fireflies." Lily Cozzolino, Will to Survive: Against All Odds (2012)
maidhc said,
September 7, 2014 @ 4:50 pm
I found some other things in the article which sound strange to me:
Alexander Wang proved himself one of the biggest innovators in New York fashion with a fast tempo, uber-cool catwalk show
fast-tempo?
"Thank you so much. Congratulations," the Barbadian pop star said before being whisked away as Wang was mobbed more fans, other celebrities and fashionistas.
Models belted down the runway, hair scrapped back and faces,
Don't models usually stroll down a runway? I have no idea what the second part means at all.
Since 2012, he has also been creative director of Balenciaga, the first American in more than 10 years to run a old-school French couture house, and in November a collection for retailers H and M is due to hit stores.
He has been … creative director … first American … a collection
He chose white, turquoise, lilac, amethyst, navy and sunset coral as the colors of his collection, meant to embody the skies over Nepal from dusk to dawn.
I'd like to see those white night skies some time.
Outfits incapsulated a fresh, dreamy exoticism
When they said in the future everything would come in a pill, I didn't believe them.
The designer's first shoe line complimented the clothes, each named after 20th century artists:
Each refers to what? Shoe line? Clothes? And complemented, I presume.
The story comes from Agence France-Presse, so perhaps it was written in French and auto-translated, or translated by someone with limited skills. It clearly hasn't been edited by an English-speaking editor.
Elonkareon said,
September 7, 2014 @ 9:22 pm
maidhc:
1) fast-tempo — Yes, probably. But that's a minor typo at worst.
2) belted down the runway — I understood this to mean moved quickly or forcefully down the runway, or as the online version of Merriam-Webster says: "to move or act in a speedy, vigorous, or violent manner". It may be an accurate description, I can't really say. As for hair scrapped back, now this usage is unfamiliar to me. Either it's a typo for strapped or similar, or it's some kind of modern fashion industry lingo.
3) Since 2012… — A violation of parallelism. A sin, but sadly an all too common one.
4) Stars, clouds, and the moon are all white, and present in the skies.
5) incapsulate — Cute. Of course you know this is an entirely justified use of the word, albeit, in an unusual form.
6) each: shoe line or clothes? — Both, presumably. And complemented rather than complimented, of course. Neither shoes nor clothes are particularly talkative.
Noscitur a sociis said,
September 8, 2014 @ 1:15 am
Re belted, I easily understand what is signified. Not having seen the show, I can't vouch for the description.
Re the night sky, it seems the complaint lies with the artistic decision, not the reporter's description of it.
Re each, I also am not sure what is named after 20th century artists.
Robot Therapist said,
September 8, 2014 @ 1:44 am
"Belted" is common in UK English for "hurried". I might say that I need to belt to the shops. I guess "scrapped" should be "scraped".
Sarah said,
September 8, 2014 @ 1:52 am
Scrapped for scraped?
Gav said,
September 8, 2014 @ 4:49 am
Petrograd, or whatever it's called right now, is famous for its white nights.
Why "fast-tempo" rather than fast tempo? It's natural to say "he played the walz at an inappropriately fast tempo"
Rodger C said,
September 8, 2014 @ 6:47 am
Gav: Because in the sentence quoted, "fast[-]tempo" is a single attributive.
Pedantic Pismire said,
September 8, 2014 @ 7:28 am
Regarding "fast tempo" . . .
Failure to hyphenate a compound modifier:
1st offense: Tsk tsk, a typo.
2nd offense: Misdemeanor Bumpkinism.
3rd offense: Felonious Hackery.
4th offense: Exile.
Biscia said,
September 8, 2014 @ 7:43 am
@maidhc: As a translator from another Romance language, yep, I would say it sounds like a translation from the French or whatever. Done by an English-speaking human, but without proofreading, time, or experience. (To be fair, fashion copy can be pretty horrible in the original, too.)
Brian T said,
September 8, 2014 @ 8:11 am
"Since 2012, he has also been creative director of Balenciaga, the first American in more than 10 years to run a old-school French couture house, and in November a collection for retailers H and M is due to hit stores."
This may look like a case of mangled parallelism, but it's really just a compound sentence muddied by an appositive that creates a false expectation of "items in a series." It's structurally the same as "Yesterday we met Mary, the new teacher, and then lunch was served."
Jerry Friedman said,
September 8, 2014 @ 8:28 am
Models belted down the runway, hair scrapped back and faces,
That should presumable be "hair scraped back from faces," that is, hair pulled back tightly. Google finds lots of hits for "hair scraped back" in this sense.
The designer's first shoe line complimented the clothes, each named after 20th century artists:
I take this to mean that each style in the shoe line was named after a 20th-century artist (which should be singular).
Jerry Friedman said,
September 8, 2014 @ 8:36 am
Maybe the article was translated from French, but it's not a translation from the AFP article that's on the Web.
Gav: St. Petersburg has "white nights" in summer because it's a long way north of Nepal. I agree with Elonkareon that the designer probably had the moon and stars in mind, or claimed to.
And there are plenty of other nits to pick in the article, such as the misspelling of "androgynous".
Andrew (yet another one) said,
September 10, 2014 @ 12:12 am
Brian T, not so. In the original, "creative director" and "the first American" are in fact items in a series of "been" objects. In your model, "Mary" and "the new teacher" are not objects in series: the latter modifies the former.
GH said,
September 10, 2014 @ 8:09 am
On the topic of unfamiliar transitive verbs (or senses of verbs), I like the use of transitive "wonder" to mean something like "puzzle" or "amaze" in the headline. That is, assuming we are supposed to interpret it as:
… rather than:
The closest sense found in the OED seems to be:
wnek2 said,
September 10, 2014 @ 11:22 am
Where I live, a common regionalism is "It wonders me," to mean a combination of "I wonder" and "It amazes me."
"It wonders me how those karate guys can chop concrete blocks with their head."
And yes, "head" would be used in the singular.
Anthony said,
September 10, 2014 @ 1:08 pm
I take "belted" to be a typo for "bolted" (assuming the text is American English, as indicated by the spelling "colors").