Thursday, July 01, 2010

From Avoiding Oil Rigs to Catenative Verbs

The good news is, I now know what catenative verbs are...

As for the bad news, my initial amusement towards a certain title in an online paper seems to have disappeared. (see picture below)
  
It happens all the time, you see something *interesting, and you make a mental note... " I shall blog about that". And you do. In my case, I click the Blogger button at the bottom of my sidebar, which then takes me to the dashboard, and I proceed to create a new post and happily type into it. For this post, I needed to print screen (lovely feature, I must add) the site I was on. 

You see, something about a hurricane avoiding oil rigs tickled my funny bone. Now, I've always used the word 'avoid' in the context where the act is done on purpose. You avoid someone, or you avoid going to a certain place because it gives you diarrhea. But you can't really picture a hurricane avoiding oil rigs. In my mind, it looks like a particular thunderstorm cloud, with rain pouring in sheets, moving along a crooked line avoiding all the oil rigs that are littered all over the place.



But something caught me midway... what if my usage of the word 'avoid' was inaccurate? What if you really could use it in this context? What if I was the one being silly thinking it was hilarious all by myself? So I decided to google the word avoid which then led me to... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/avoid

So that is how I got to know what a catenative verb is, and although I have been using catenative verbs all my life (since I started talking/writing properly, anyway), this is the first time I've come across the word. What's really strange is that our dear friend, the Blogger spell check feature, refuses to identify the word catenative as a proper English word!

*Depending on who you are, and what you find interesting, of course.

PS: Yes, admittedly, this is a pointless post... (among many others), but I didn't want to leave the blog all lonesome without a July post while I was away. Yes, the weekend getaway is finally here!


12 comments:

  1. Okay, but it's still kind of funny to think of the hurricane bobbing and weaving to miss the oil rigs.

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  2. I think the hurricane might just have a mind of it's own !

    Hurricane : hhhhmmmm should I twirl there or should I twirl here ?? Anywhere is good -lol !

    wink ! wink !

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  3. It would be a little worrying to discover that oil rigs positioned in the global hurricane hot-spot were unable to withstand the odd hurricane. I hope they are.

    Enjoy your weekend/holiday.

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  4. Wait wait wait...you have the blogger spell check thingy??????? How come i dont have it????

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  5. I have this image of a hurricane on tip-toes holding up skirts so as not to hit the oil rigs... good to know other people have ridiculous images pop into their heads too!

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  6. Pssh! Not a pointless post at all.

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  7. I don't believe in such a thing as a pointless post.

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  8. SAW: Hehehe... Well, aside from the damage it did on land...

    Unicorn girl: The hurricane adds: "Except where the rigs are... don't want to get oil splotches all over me"

    King of Scurf: I certainly hope so too... But it would be a bit frightening for the people on the rig at that time, though...

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  9. Saby: Use blogger in draft. They have spell check there. :)

    AHD: LOL... yes, indeed. It's awesome knowing that there are so many like minded people out there :)

    Orhan: Well, probably not... (based on the response)

    Travis: Then I shall believe ya!

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  10. like the blog! visit mine and follow if you wish

    http://jenniferscavone.blogspot.com/

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  11. These hurricanes, they're very sensitive and considerate, you know. Of course they wouldn't randomly demolish oil rigs, that would be a jolly nasty thing to do.

    I never knew what a catenative verb was either. But now I'm beginning to understand....

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  12. nick: Hahaha... should have guessed that there was an explanation behind their odd behaviour ;)

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