A question has come up workshopping one of TrossL's limericks at the OEDILF.
I won't give too many details because I don't want to predudice the outcome.
So here it is.
Do you have any comments about this sentence?


The mother could cease her children's fight by saying, "I'll tell your Dad".


More details about the question later.

I don't think the verb "cease" can take a direct object.

Relevent to the discussion Richard but I think it's a little more subtle. Several people in the WS have pointed out that the first dictionary def. shows it as a transitive verb and gives as an example

The factory ceased production.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
The mother could cease her children's fight by saying, "I'll tell your Dad".

A verbal noun, e.g. cease her children's fighting might be slightly better, but stop would be better still: a simpler and plainer word. It's hard to nail cease in this context. It just sounds contrived or slightly high-flown. OED allows both intransitive and several transitive uses. It permits:
6. a. To leave off, discontinue (one's own action; formerly also, one's anger or other passions).
but regards as obsolete:
5. To put a stop to (the action of others, a state or condition of things), to stop. Obs.
7. To cause (an agent) to leave off (of an action); to appease, bring to rest, quiet. Obs.

A somewhat arbitrary distinction?

Ah, but the word being defined in the limerick in question is "cease" so it can't be switched to anything else.

The meaning used here then is, according to the OED, obsolete.I thought so. My primary problem is I don't think, in modern English, you can cease my action. I think "cease" can only apply to your own actions.

The children can cease their fight (or fighting) but the mother can't do it for them.
It seems that in the now obsolete usage she could.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BobHale:
Spot on, Bob.

Bob, I agree with what you have written. Possibly TrossL has heard it used that way, but I never have. Before reading the obsolete OED definitions, I would have said the usage was just plain wrong. Now I guess I'll have to say it's just plain antique.

She can turn it around and say something to the effect that if the mother threatens to tell their Dad the children's fight will cease.

Wordmatic

Bob, I will take a look at it.

I agree, though, even if technically correct, it just sounds awkward. Most always you can change lines, keeping the correct stresses and meaning. I'd suggest that.

I've not looked at this limerick, but there are plenty of rhymes for "cease" so it shouldn't be difficult to write a definition.

cease

An interesting verb. It is transitive, e.g., the factory ceased production, yet the passive sounds weird, production was ceased by the factory. The imperative is OK: cease production now. The sentence cited above, The mother could cease her children's fight by saying, "I'll tell your Dad", doesn't sound quite right. With many transitive verbs, the action of the verb affects the states of the objects (direct or indirect), but with cease, it is the subject's state that is changed. (Cf. intransitive verbs like ]i]to fall asleep[/i], to dream, to awake, etc.)

The mother could make her children cease fighting by saying, "I'll tell your Dad".

well... all very helpful and yet not. In my quest to come up with a ce- word, I was just flipping though my dictionary and saw "cease." It's first definition was "stop or to put a stop to" which made me think of mothers putting a stop to kids fighting. And so the limerick came. It seemed fine to me at the time but I see it is very problamatic and that my dictionary may well be an antique. Oh well, back to the drawing board. As Richard said, there are lots of rhymes for cease.

Don't give up on it!
I'm sure that with only slight rewording it will work fine. The concept is a good one.

Yes, TrossL, I agree with Bob. I will look at all your lims this weekend. I have been quite remiss in workshopping over there, and this gives me a good excuse!