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Grow is now a transitivie verb?
Almost my entire life, I have thought that the verb to grow was intransitive. For example, the nursery rhyme asks. "How does you garden grow?", not "How do you grow your garden?" Now I hear things like, "Grow your money" and "Grow new hair". In the past it would be, "Help your money grow" or "Help new hair grow". I guess the hair one doesn't sound so bad after all, but I still don't get it.
3 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Maybe it's because Hiberno-English is different, but all MY life I have heard people talk about somebody growing things, e.g. lovely spuds. So to me, "grow something" instead of "cultivate something" sounds totally natural.
Source(s): me own ears - husoskiLv 71 decade ago
You got me to look into my library. I have Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate (2003 CD version), plus a 1934 Webster's 2nd (!) New International (a 1949 printing, actually, but it still mentions "the World War" for WW-I and does not appear to mention WW-II in the main text), and a 1920 "Webster's" Elementary School dictionary. All list grow as also transitive: "to cause to grow".
Plus, I've often heard that a lizard--after breaking off its tail to escape a predator--will grow a new tail; that a tadpole will grow legs; and that whisky (or even "whiskey", if not talking about proper whisky) will grow hair on your chest.
Merry Christmas!
