With a nod to Enid Blyton, who wrote several "The Mystery of..." books, let me ask whether anyone else has noticed this phenomenon and, if so, what they think about it.

Just this morning there was a news item about a ferry that had been prevented from sailing by the port authorities, who were unsatisfied with the vessel's safety. The piece was introduced with the sentence, "...passengers had to disembark a ferry last night...". No I would have written that, "...passengers had to disembark from a ferry last night..."

I first noticed this in US English when I began to hear phrases like, "...he intends to protest the decision...". I would have written "...he intends to protest against the decision..." - my reasoning being it would be possible to protest for or about a decision and thus the preposition is necessary.

Although it will often be clear from the context what is meant, this same argument could be applied to many kinds of writing and writing aids, and is not usually trotted out as a reason for eliminating words or punctuation. Although the examples given above would not always lead to a lack of clarity, it would be possible to think of many others that would. For example, you can walk a path - but you can also walk on it, along it, beside it, across it, above it, beneath it - each phrase having a slightly different shade of meaning.

What do others think about this apparent tendency to get rid of prepositions?

Zwicky has a couple posts on alternations between direct objects (no preposition) and oblique objects (marked with a preposition).

he intends to protest the decision is a completely normal part of my English. protest with a direct object is attested since 1887. It does seem to be a NA/UK difference.

What about agree? Apparently agree with a direct object is used in the UK, as in Many countries hope that Bali will agree a two-year roadmap. This sounds strange to my NA ears; I would use agree to.

I don't see what the problem is. This just looks like normal variation.

Protest against sounds redundant to me and protest for sounds contradictory.

Agreed, Tinman. After all, if you protest, it's always against. You can't protest for something.

However, I think agree needs to have a to. Agree a two-year roadmap doesn't sound at all right to me.

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Agreed, Tinman. After all, if you protest, it's always against. You can't protest for something.

Unusual to protest for, I agree - but possible to protest about.

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Zwicky has a couple posts

In the UK, we would say "Zwicky has a couple of posts".

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However, I think agree needs to have a to. Agree a two-year roadmap doesn't sound at all right to me

If "protest" doesn't need a preposition then neither does "agree". If you can't protest for something then you can't agree against something.

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Agree a two-year roadmap doesn't sound at all right to me

I have no trouble with that. As mentioned, "protest" could be for or against, so there could be some ambiguity, but that's not the case with "agree".

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Agreed, Tinman. After all, if you protest, it's always against. You can't protest for something.

Sure you can! In my dialect, protest the amendment and protest against the amendment are synonymous. But I would think it's also possible to protest for the amendment. According to MWDEU, protest for is never found. But it is easy enough for find examples of it online.

You certainly can protest for something. It's not uncommon to see different protest groups in London, protesting for and against a particular issue, with the poor police stuck in the middle trying to keep them apart.

To protest is to object. Below is the example goofy cites. Note that, although the title is "French protest for murdered Jew," the sentence below it reveals that the protest is "against racism and anti-Semitism." They were not protesting the murdered Jew. They were protesting his murder. Despite what the title says, they were protesting against. Newspaper titles are often abbreviated for the sake of "economy," often at the expense of clarity. They are designed to pique your curiosity so you'll read further. They can do this by sensationalizing the title or by making it ambiguous.

quote:

French protest for murdered Jew

Tens of thousands of people have marched through Paris to protest against racism and anti-Semitism after the kidnap and murder of a young Jew.

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Originally posted by tinman:
Despite what the title says, they were protesting against.

They were protesting for the murdered man. They were protesting against his murder. There's nothing unclear here.

I'm not convinced.

Protesting against his murder is the same thing as protesting for him.

So "protest for" doesn't sound normal to you?

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If "protest" doesn't need a preposition then neither does "agree".

I don't think that follows at all. In English we have different rules for many situations.

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You certainly can protest for something.

and

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I have no trouble with that.

Arnie, from my perspective, neither of those are true here in the U.S. Perhaps the dialects are the problem. However, I think in American English you don't protest for something (and you "agree to" something"). Most likely that BBC headline would not be seen here. I agree with Tinman that the protest is against anti-Semitism and not for the murdered Jew.

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Agree a two-year roadmap doesn't sound at all right to me


I have no trouble with that. As mentioned, "protest" could be for or against, so there could be some ambiguity, but that's not the case with "agree".

This is certainly the first time I've ever heard of agree taking a direct object. I noticed in the articles cited above that the usage is relatively recent, an innovation of the British media. How would you feel about "Many countries hope that Bali will consent a two-year roadmap"? or " assent a two-year roadmap"?

Using "agree" this way almost sounds like an imitation of the way "approve" takes a direct object when it means to 'sign off on.' For example 'he approved the contract', as opposed to 'he approved of the contract' which is about his opinion of it. I suppose if I'd been reading for years in the papers about how parties "agreed something" I'd get used to it.

"Protesting something" (with the accent on the "pro")-- as in 'protesting the war' perhaps slipped easily into usage in NA because one is already accustomed to "protesting something" (accent on the "test")-- as in 'protesting the use of that word.'

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I agree with Tinman that the protest is against anti-Semitism and not for the murdered Jew.

It's the same thing!

protest for meaning "To petition, advance a claim; to put forward a protestation" dates from 1429 and is obsolete. This "protest for" found in headlines seems to have the same meaning and is presumably a new usage. Does anyone besides me and Arnie find it natural?

Count me in. I'm always protesting for this or that law or regulation to be adopted.

It's only in this era of relative free speech has "protest" taken on the more modern meaning. That is, when a group of people gather to show their support for or opposition to a particular issue. Little more than 100 years ago such groups would have been broken up by the police.

When people gather in support of something I've usually heard "demonstrate for;" when they're against it I hear "protest [against]." I don't remember hearing "protest for," but now that I look for it I see that "demonstrate for" and "protest for" are used interchangeably by the press ."

I use "protest for". It seems perfectly natural to me. I think "protest against" is more common but that's human nature. People are always more eager to tell you what they are against than what they are for.

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Originally posted by arnie:
It's only in this era of relative free speech has "protest" taken on the more modern meaning. That is, when a group of people gather to show their support for or opposition to a particular issue. Little more than 100 years ago such groups would have been broken up by the police.

OK, I'll give you that. the 1429 meaning isn't the same as the modern meaning. The modern meaning is from the 19th century:

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1870 Times 19 July 12/5 On Sunday a demonstration to protest against what was called the ‘Infamous Sunday Trading Bill’ was made in Hyde Park.

1904 Brooklyn Eagle 5 June **5/6 Many of the students are much incensed at the judges and will probably protest the decision.

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If "protest" doesn't need a preposition then neither does "agree".

I don't think that follows at all. In English we have different rules for many situations.

The rule, such as it is, should be the same for both; they are verbs followed by an object. If it's correct to say that one can protest a decision then one can agree a decision. Or if one can protest against a decision then one can agree with a decision.

The omission of the preposition in one but not the other seems to be a US/UK difference.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

The rule, such as it is, should be the same for both

You really haven't thought that out because if you had you wouldn't make such a peculiar assertion.

There are no absolute rules that are universally applicable in any (non-artificial) language.

You might just as well assert that the plural of "child" should be "childs" because the rule is we make plurals by adding an "s". You might just as well assert that the verb "to be" should be "I be/you be/he bes" and in the past "I bed/You bed//He bed" (pronounced "beed")

It's clearly not true to assert that because the grammar for one verb follows a particular pattern the grammar for all verbs should follow the same pattern.

To choose a relevent example, consider say and tell.

I said, "No" to him.
I told him, "No".
I told "No" to him.*
I said him "No".*
I told him a story.
I told a story to him.
I said him a story.*
I said a story to him.*

The four * sentences are non standard, though there may be dialects where some are used.
The two verbs, though having a similar meaning in no way follow a similar structure of what is and what isn't acceptable in standard English.

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The rule, such as it is, should be the same for both

I did use that form of words to indicate that that the rule is not a fixed or invariable rule. As we all realise, there are very few, if any, rules that are invariable.

I was trying to make the point that use or omission of a preposition seems to vary with the verb and with the country of usage. In one or other country all of the exemplar sentences I used would be correct.

You also said should be the same for both, which is what I was disagreeing with.

Why should it?

I am unaware of any linguistic rules governing the use of verbs by themselves or with verbal particles or prepositions. There is a distinction between phrasal verbs and verbs whose complements are prepositional phrases. For example, the meaning of get over 'to recover from' is not readily derived from the meanings of its constituents, but walk up, walk across, etc., are. There is an abundant literature on verbal phrases in English as they do have a different syntax from the non-phrasal verbs used with simple prepositional or adverbal phrases. For example:

1. I turned off the TV in the livingroom.
2. I turned the TV in the livingroom off.
3. I walked down the road to the bar.
4. *I walked the road to the bar down.

This is a well known phenomenon, and one that is gone over in teaching English as a second language classes the world over. The thing is, one cannot tell which verbs are which and the meanings of most of the phrasal verbs. Recourse must be made to native speakers and dictionaries. (There are special dictionaries of phrasal verbs available for foreign students of English.) That there are regional and temporal differences in how verbs work syntactically should not be surprising to anyone who has studied English or linguistics.

In the examples, disembark (from) and protest (for, against), the situation is further obscured by the valency of the verbs (i.e., whether they are transitive or intransitive). The OEd cites examples of protest as a transitive and an intransitive verb going back before the USA existed. For example, "The Lady protests too much, me thinks." Hamlet III.2; "Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice" Much Ado About Nothing V.2. The samde holds for disembark: e.g., "The Commander had leisure to disembark and enter the town" 1659; "I must unto the road, to disembark some neccessaries" [i]Two Gentlemen II.4.

You need to go right back to the original posting about which I was commenting to see the whole thing in context. Kalleh wrote: "...Agreed, Tinman. After all, if you protest, it's always against. You can't protest for something.

However, I think agree needs to have a to. Agree a two-year roadmap doesn't sound at all right to me..."

My comment was that there are these variations and it is clear that US and UK English have different conventions about which verbs need a preposition and which do not. My comment about "the rule being the same for both" was simply an illustration to show why it's just not possible to say that one way is right and the other way is wrong, simply because that happens to be one's own convention.

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It's the same thing!

Perhaps to you, goofy, but not to me.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

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It's the same thing!

Perhaps to you, goofy, but not to me.

So you agree that it is possible to protest for something?

As it seems that protest for developed later from protest than against came to be added to disambiguate the use of just protest. For me, you can protest about, against, and for something, The interesting thing, etymology-wise, is that the dis- in disembark and the pro- in protest are preverbal particles in Latin that roughly mean 'from' and 'for' respectively.

[Typos.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

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So you agree that it is possible to protest for something?

Well, I agree that some, such as z, use the word protest that way. But I don't.

I don't think it's the same thing to protest against anti-Semitism, but to protest for the murdered Jew simply because I don't use protest that way. I only protest against something, though I may demonstrate for or argue for something else.

That's just the way I use the word, though. Obviously others disagree with me. Similarly, I'd never use irregardless, even though it's an acceptable word that's defined in the OED. Call these Kalleh quirks, if you will.

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Similarly, I'd never use irregardless, even though it's an acceptable word that's defined in the OED. Call these Kalleh quirks, if you will.

It's not in my own COED - although that's now out of date. And I would never use it either.

Wordweb has it defined as:

Irregardless - adverb.
Regardless; a combination of irrespective and regardless sometimes used humorously.

Most of the dictionaries I have seen refer to it as non-standard and suggest that it is primarily used in US English.

It depends what you mean by "accepted"; MWDEU says "irregardless is still a long way from winning general acceptance as a standard English word."

Kalleh, I think I misunderstood you when you wrote

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After all, if you protest, it's always against. You can't protest for something.

I thought you meant that the concept did not exist. But you simply meant that the verb protest for isn't part of your English, right?

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Originally posted by bethree5:
"Protesting something" (with the accent on the "pro")-- as in 'protesting the war' perhaps slipped easily into usage in NA because one is already accustomed to "protesting something" (accent on the "test")-- as in 'protesting the use of that word.'

This is called stress shift. The main stress for the verb protest is on the second syllable, but the stress sometimes shifts to the first syllable, perhaps to even out the the spacing of the stressed syllables. Compare Chinese with stress on the second syllable, and a Chinese company with stress on the first.

I stress the verb on the second syllable and the noun on the first. Much as I do with "record".

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Originally posted by Richard English:
I stress the verb on the second syllable and the noun on the first. Much as I do with "record".

Yes, but the stress on the verb sometimes shifts to the first syllable.

We expórt.
We éxport shoes.

With protest it seems particularly common in NA, M-W lists both pronunciations.

It also happens with numbers, compare
She's thirtéen.
She's thírteen years old.

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But you simply meant that the verb protest for isn't part of your English, right?

Yes, I suppose, which really means that I accept that "protest for" exists. I don't use it, but I suppose I have to admit that the use exists, which is different from my earlier posts in this thread. Yes, Wordcrafters have convinced me.

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It depends what you mean by "accepted"; MWDEU says "irregardless is still a long way from winning general acceptance as a standard English word."

I really hate to get into another "irregardless" discussion, as we've had many here (the word hs been mentioned 95 times here). However, the OED says, " In non-standard or humorous use: regardless." It calls it a Chiefly N. American. So you're correct, goofy.