2 Comments »

1. You can't spell "empowerment" without OWE ME.

   Comment by Anon in PDX — August 25, 2011 @ 6:24 pm

2. This is a nice quote, and certainly makes an interesting point about the way helpers view the people they want to help (I have done some volunteer work myself and this view was permeated through the training we got), though the linguistic point of it is just slightly wrong.

   Transitive verbs do indeed have an agent and a patiens, respectively someone that does the action and someone that receives it, but this doesn't mean the focus is always on the agent. In fact, you can avoid naming the agent altogether by using the transitive verb in a passive sentence, like "I am really empowered", and not specifying the agent with the preposition "by" (cf. "I am really empowered by Martha"). This is how politicians avoid taking responsibility for certain actions ("mistakes were made"). The emphasis is put their by the way the verb is used, not by its transitive character alone.

   Comment by Dennis — January 3, 2012 @ 5:45 pm

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