Posted by R. Berg on June 08, 2003
In Reply to: Re: Accept and college party posted by Henry on June 08, 2003
: : : Hi folks,
: : : 1."We are much more accepting of people with disabilities nowdays..."
: : : ("Accept" is a transitive verb, then why add "of" here? or it is a fixed pattern?)
: : : 2.The professor took a college party to the mountians to
search unusual plants.
: : : (what is a "college party")
: : : 3.And do you know where I can find the meanings of sets of synonyms? like bureau, administration, and department?
: : : thanks in advance!
: : Accept is as you rightly say a transitive verb... BUT it's also an intransitive one. This from the American Heritage Dictionary On-Line:
: : ACCEPT
: : INTRANSITIVE VERB: To receive something, especially with favor. Often used with of.
: : As for a college party, that's a party (or group) of students from a college... and they'd be searching FOR unusual plants.
: : As for synonyms, I can heartily recommend www.bartleby.com as one of my favourite on-line resources. It has searchable dictionaries, quotations, encyclopaedias and thesauri, the latter being ideal for your synonyms questions.
: Phrase 1 requires the word 'of'.
: The following construction uses 'accept' as a transitive verb;
: We accept people with disabilities more readily nowadays.
Sphinx, your original sentence requires "of" because it uses "accepting"
as an adjective (derived from the verb "accept"), not as a verb.
It's like these sentences: "We are much more afraid of disease nowadays." "We are much more grateful for help nowadays."
A person accepts an invitation (transitive verb) but is accepting of foreigners (adjective). The school is accepting applications (verb: present participle).