CHAPTER XXV

THE DIRECT OBJECT

The direct object of a transitive verb is so familiar a sentence-element that it makes itself understood without much special investigation. It presents few peculiarities, and these are not difficult.

The transitive verb is usually defined as one that denotes action terminating on an object. This definition does not cover all verbs called transitive, for instance, the verb have, meaning own, which does not denote any action whatever. But it would be difficult indeed to make a better definition. The definition, a transitive verb is one that takes an object, is open to the objection that it applies only to transitive verbs in the active voice, whereas passive verbs are also transitive in meaning. We may say this much, however,—(a) no verb is considered transitive unless it has two substantives, a subject and a complement, the two meaning different things, an agent and a non-agent. (b) A sentence containing a transitive verb can always be changed to the passive form, the complement becoming the subject, and the subject of the active verb becoming the object of the preposition by. This second point is a better test of the transitive verb than the definition is.

For example, take the verb earn in the sentence,—“Indeed, a man may earn twenty thousand dollars a year by writing ‘sensation-stories,’ and have nothing to do with literature in any high sense.”—Higginson. It is true that when a man earns he acts, but his action is not performed upon the twenty thousand dollars. In so far this verb does not come under the definition of a transitive verb; but it answers the test, that is, it may be changed to the passive; thus, “Twenty thousand dollars was earned by him.” This does not mean that the twenty thousand dollars received an action; it means that twenty thousand became his possession as a result of his work.

Of transitive verbs denoting action performed directly upon some object, examples are in the following sentences.

(a) “Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all is made of one piece.”—Emerson.

(b) “When Gabriel blows his trumpet I hope he will select the moment before sunrise for his summons.”—Bolles.

(c) “Many men eat finer cookery, drink dearer liquors, with what advantage they can report and their doctors can.”—Carlyle.

Examples of transitive verbs like earn that take an object and denote action, but not action really performed upon the object, are found in the following sentences.

(a) These deluded people visit fortune tellers in the hope of finding out what is to happen in the future.

(b) “He entered the street at the end opposite to the Holborn entrance.”—George Eliot.

Action always suggests to us at first thought physical action, that accompanied by movement; but there are other kinds of action which may be told by transitive verbs.

1. Action of the mind, denoted by such verbs as believe, learn, think, remember; as, “To know anything that turns up is, in the infinity of knowledge, to know nothing.”—F. Harrison.

2. Action of the emotions, denoted by such verbs as hate, love, revere; as, “When Père Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as he loved his life.”

3. Action of the senses, denoted by the verbs see, hear, feel, smell, taste; as, “To see a good man and hear his voice once a week would be reason enough for building churches and pulpits.”—Holmes.

Verbs of saying, like tell, remark, declare, exclaim, are followed by a direct object, usually a quotation or a noun clause telling just what was said; thus, “He cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him.”—Macaulay.

The verbs ask and teach are often followed by two direct objects, one of the person and the other of the thing; as, “Whoever will teach the people of New England the advantages of good food, fresh air, and sunshine, will renew the physical constitution of the race.”—J. F. Clarke. “Ask a great money-maker what he means to do with his money—he never knows.”—Ruskin.

These verbs are really used in a double sense. For instance, in the first sentence, in so far as will teach takes the object the people of New England, it means instruct; in so far as it takes the object the advantages of good food, fresh air and sunshine, it means impart. When such a sentence is changed to the passive form, either object may become the subject, and the other may remain as the object of the passive verb; or, if the personal object remains, it may be called an indirect object.

Some verbs usually intransitive may become transitive by being followed by a cognate object, that is, one whose meaning is akin to that of the verb, as in the familiar expressions run a race, dream a dream, smile a smile; as, “There he fell into evil paths, and on a fatal day sinned a great sin.”—Hillis.

Some transitive verbs may be followed by an object meaning the same person or thing as the subject. This is called a reflexive object; as, “On the wall opposite, about a mile across the gulf, a brook was pouring itself to the valley.”—King. In this sentence the brook is conceived in two aspects, that of a doer and that of a receiver—it pours and is poured.

Some verbs are made transitive by the addition of an adverb; as,

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

—Tennyson.

Here the old is the object not of the verb ring, but of the verb ring out.

Frequently a preposition is to be taken with a verb, the two words denoting one idea and that transitive; as, “You cannot stir abroad but Jews and Christians pounce upon you with unsettled bonds.”—Carlyle. A test for this sort of compound verb is that when it is changed to the passive form, the two words—verb and preposition—remain together; thus, “You are pounced upon by Jews and Christians.”

In the sentence, “Make up your mind to forego driving sledge,” we have four different direct objects. (1) The compound verb make up takes the object your mind. (2) The whole group of words make up your mind is equivalent to the one verb decide, and as such takes the infinitive phrase for object, to forego driving sledge. (3) The object of the infinitive to forego is the gerund-phrase driving sledge. (4) The object of the gerund driving is the noun sledge.

A combination of two verbs with the meaning of one transitive verb is found in the every-day expression make believe, meaning pretend. This cannot be separated. It is usually followed by an infinitive or a noun clause used as its object. For example, “Whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick and made believe to worry it.”—Lewis Carroll.

Exercise 31

Explain how all verbs and verbals in the following sentences are completed.

1. Storms shall sob themselves to sleep.—Beecher.

2. The time will come, let us hope, when all boys will be taught the use of tools, and all girls the principles of cooking.—J. F. Clarke.

3. He doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had not been born “an age too late.”—Macaulay.

4. You will hear more wit and better wit in an Irish street row than would keep Westminster Hall in humor for five weeks.—Bagehot.

5. He was her special pet and she disapproved of the nurse.—Kipling.

6. Conclave after conclave asked him to be Pope.—Hale.

7. When the clock strikes the hour, his mind begins to work.—Hillis.

8. He said he was a surgeon, and that in case any accident occurred on board he must always be in readiness.—Crawford.

9. It must not be supposed that the Italians hate the Austrians as individuals.—Howells.

10. Then I shall hang you for yourself, as a rogue and a rascal.—Froude.

11. The Saxon is wanting in taste, which is as much as to say that he has no true sense of proportion.—Lowell.

12. However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.—Lewis Carroll.

13. All ruin, desolateness, imperfectness of hut or habitation you must do away with.—Ruskin.

14. To study a nest is to make an acquaintance.—Olive T. Miller.

15.

Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin—

’Tis sweet to let the pardoned in.—Moore.

16. Even in books I like a confined locality.—Miss Mitford.