Fetus as "doer"?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:48 pm

'Aborted women', eh! I'm torn between on the one hand admiring its brevity, and on the other thinking it is a clumsy "non-metaphor" (just made that term up).

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:50 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Sorry to be so boring, but I read "aborted missions" as 1.

Don't worry, me too.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:52 pm

Friends?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:54 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:'Aborted women', eh! I'm torn between on the one hand admiring its brevity, and on the other thinking it is a clumsy "non-metaphor" (just made that term up).

Really? Did you look for the reasons regarding why they may be using that term?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:55 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:'Aborted women', eh! I'm torn between on the one hand admiring its brevity, and on the other thinking it is a clumsy "non-metaphor" (just made that term up).

Google: 276 English pages for "non-metaphor".

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:56 pm

I'll go through the links now. I was trying to keep up with the discussion!

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:56 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Friends?

Where?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:59 pm

fluffyhamster wrote: I'll go through the links now. I was trying to keep up with the discussion!

Don't tire yourself, now.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:02 pm

Here we go:

"It may sound strange to speak of "aborted" women, since it's actually their children who were aborted. But Reardon — who heads the Elliott Institute, specializing in post-abortion research — understands that the women have also been subjected to a type of violence, both physical and spiritual. So he spends some pages simply letting them tell their own stories. Listen, first, to their voices:"

http://www.boundless.org/2001/regulars/ ... 00567.html

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:15 pm

metal56 wrote:Don't tire yourself, now.

Well, it is 4am here in Japan. Maybe you'd be happier if I aborted/you aborted me and you thus became an "aborted educator"?

But thanks for posting the relevant bitty...I'm resisting having a peek 'cos I'm hoping my IQ will leap a few dozen points from ploughing thru the links.

Ganbarimasu!

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:19 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:
metal56 wrote:
Ganbarimasu!
Who could ask for more?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:25 pm

Post just in (on another forum):

Webster's Third New International Dictionary has intransitive as well as transitve definitions:

abort
vi 3: to stop or fail in the early stages <many colds abort without treatment> <the plans have aborted> <the bomber aborted from its mission>

vt 2a: to terminate prematurely <abort a project> : stop in the early stages <abort a disease> b: to turn back without completion

If it's correct to say The plans have aborted, then I suppose it's also correct to say The mission has aborted. But I would expect to hear much more often that some agent, human or mechanical, has aborted a mission -- terminated it prematurely.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 8:02 pm

Hmm, after reading through the two links you gave, and then the "definition" (from a different site, I might add! Refund, refund!), I still don't think "aborted" women is quite the right term...

I'm always a bit suspicious of people who quote from a dictionary (especially Webster's) as if it's captured reality (actual usage) so completely and perfectly that everyone will agree that it's "correct" to say whatever, and there are of course other dictionaries ("unabridged" ones aren't necessarily always the best) that will present a differing story.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 8:12 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Hmm, after reading through the two links you gave, and then the "definition" (from a different site, I might add! Refund, refund!), I still don't think "aborted" women is quite the right term...
Which term would you suggest?

I'm always a bit suspicious of people who quote from a dictionary (especially Webster's) as if it's captured reality (actual usage) so completely and perfectly that everyone will agree that it's "correct" to say whatever, .
You did see the modality in that post, didn't you'

<<then I suppose it's also correct to say >>

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:40 am

Here, Darwin uses "abort" in a non-causative way:

If the discs had been small or only viscid in a slight degree, if the other related contrivances had been imperfect in any degree, we might have concluded that they had begun to abort; that Nature, if I may use the expression, seeing that the Fly and Spider Ophrys were imperfectly fertilised and produced few seed-capsules, had changed her plan and effected complete and perpetual self-fertilisation, in order that more seed might be produced.

http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles ... ids_02.htm