RE: "Turn on the radio?"

["Dugas, Andrew" <ADugas -at- eTranslate -dot- com>]

Hmmm, I sort of disagree but like where you're going.

As a coworker suggested, "turn on" in this context is not a phrasal verb.
"On" modifies radio. A parallel would be "Set phasers to stun," the idea
being that ON is a setting of the radio, not part of a two part verb.

In this sense, "turn the radio on" seems perfectly acceptable.

However, as one who has walked in multilingual circles for 13 years, I would
avoid confusion by treating "turn on" as a phrasal. Context prevents
confusion with the true phrasal "turn on" as in the sexual meaning.

-----Original Message-----
From: Martyn Perry [mailto:Martyn -dot- Perry -at- Sun -dot- COM]
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 10:57 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: "Turn on the radio?"



>Excerpt on dangling prepostions from the Guide to Grammar and Style by
>Peter Lynch (http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/p.html):
>
>"According to a widely circulated (and often mutated) story, Winston
>Churchill, reprimanded for ending a sentence with a preposition, put it
>best: 'This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put.'" 
>
>Johanne Cadorette
>
 "On" in this use is not a preposition, just as "up" in Churchill's famous,
but 
fatuous, quip is not. It is an adverb that is part of the verb. English,
because 
it is a germanic language uses adverbs to modify the meaning of verbs: knock

out, turn off, turn on, and the like. 

This adverb originally followed the objects of the verb of the clause in
which 
it is because it modifies the whole simple predicate, for example: "His face

lights up when he sees her," or :She knock him out with a left hook." 

This construction is sometimes called the pincher construction.  Now, you 
occaisionally see the adverb be placed before the objects of the verb as in 
"turn on the radio."  One  often does this to emphasize the action of the
verb.

Adverbs can also be attached to verbs as prefixes to modify the meaning ,
such 
"undertake," "outline," and the like.  In this construction, the adverb is 
always part of the verb and never separated from it. 

The latter construction is the norm in most of the other members of the 
Indoeuropean languages.

Again pick the most common useage. Remember the documentation is read by
those 
whose command of English is not native and may not be fluent and that the 
documentation may be translated.  Be kind to them.  Remember also that there
is 
no academy of English, so there is really no appeal to authority.
Literature of 
is on little help, because it is written for entirely different 
purposes--appealing to Shakespeare is useless.

Martyn

  

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