Re: the who, the that, the forest, the trees

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

Sue McCullough laughed, and then she said:

|} I laughed when Ronald L. Stone, graduate student
|} in the Department of Rhetoric at Univ. of Minn.,
|} wrote:
|}
|} <For example, I will change
|}
|} < The student _that_ writes the best essay gets
|} <   published in the anthology.
|}
|} <to
|}
|} < The student _who_ writes the best essay gets
|} <   published in the anthology.
|}
|} It's the essay that gets published, not the
|} student! The "who" versus "that" controversy
|} is insignificant compared to this lapse in
|} logic. Think first, proofread second.

I am such a grammar heretic that I can't believe that I am joining
this discussion. As a pragmatist I would say that neither of the
first two forms is likely to be misunderstood, so who cares which
is correct. That is the heretic speaking. However, I notice that
the verb ``published'' is both transitive and intransitive.

I published the book las month. (To prepare and issue for public
distribution)

I was published last month. (To be the author of published works)

So the student is published at the same time the student's essay
does. Is this not so? Is the issue, then, over the word ``gets.''

I was published vs. I got published? The heretic breaks in again
to tell me that I don't really care, but on Friday afternoon I
am easily distracted.

    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "She understood, as he did, that all writing
was infernally boring and futile, but that it had to be done out of respect
for tradition"                  --Stanislaw Lem