‘Transitively’ was the word. Already a bastard. Transitive, I look it up. It doesn’t seem to mean temporary in any way, but in my head there is some connection. Obviously it is by way of the root ‘transit’ and yes, Transitive does have that meaning in some languages apparently. I’m feeling a bit Chomskyesque now. Transitive means to pass through, in time, this would be a phase or a temporary condition.
I feel both humbled by my more educated bb colleagues and reaffirmed in my belief that I WAS RIGHT ANYWAY.
Well yeah. But O’Connor didn’t tell Cyrus to stop acting like an attention starved no talent ass clown (a perfectly fine criticism, btw). She told her to stop acting like a prostitute.
As far as I’m aware no one has actual paid to have sexual intercourse with Miley Cyrus.
Oy, stop already with the jumping on the phraseology rather than the meaning of the piece!
The OED, if we’re going to go that way, happens to list the meaning Rob intended here first among all the senses of the word “transitive”. Yes, that sense is also marked “obs. rare”, but it certainly DOES retain the meaning that Rob was going for here.
Thanks for the reply. I go to BB to avoid those elements, it wasn’t so much a kneejerk response. Perhaps I took it the wrong way considering the rest of its context, and apologies for my snark distracting from the rest, has Sinead really built her career out of failed “celebrity shock behavior”?
I see a difference in tone and content between her (admittedly, usually failed) activism and Cyrus’ bent.
THANK YOU to my literary defenders, but I decided to opt for a less opaque way of describing what I meant by “transitive self-awareness.” And I give thanks to those of you who made it clear I was being too fancy to make my point well.
This has also given me the opportunity to deploy the phrase “The Game of Crones”, so there you go. Bonus.
The main problem with Miley Cyrus is that she is just terrible at what she is trying to do. SInead is in another class all together. Saying that they are just the same is way off and may indicate some kind of sexist backstory for the sayer. Or it might be a general dislike for loud mouths of either sex. This I would also argue is some kind of useless bias.
My personal opinion is that the author intended the word to take on its logical sense: if a is to b and b is to c, then a is to c. So transitively self-aware in the Cyrus sense, would be something like “Cyrus reads the press, Cyrus knows the press is aware of her, thus Cyrus is also aware of self.” Just a transient blip in space-time transitivity.
follow the thread, I am defending the now absent phrase in question in my rather sideways way after being attacked for understanding transitive to mean temporary.
Let’s be clear - I’m not defending O’Connor’s letter. I think she was trying to gentle with Cyrus by telling her she had talent? However, her subsequent argument against her behavior falls apart because, as I said, she’s starting from a bad premise. Heck, if she actually WAS a prostitute, and was the World’s Most Amazing Prostitute, and got fame that way, I would have much less problem with it than what is actually happening here.
Tim, transitive means “characterized by transition”. Maybe it’s a more common use in the UK? But its in Merriam Webster (as well as OED, apparently) as well as the grammar- and math-related definitions, so it can’t be that obscure in the US.
It’s not quite the same as transient or transitory, which indicate only temporariness or impermanence.
Here’s the OED meaning with the recorded examples and everything:
†1. Passing or liable to pass into another condition, changeable, changeful; passing away, transient, transitory. Obs. rare.
1575 J. Rolland Treat. Court Venus i. f. 2, Thair waillit weid…Sa gay it was,…Sa wariant to sicht and transitiue.
1625 R. Brathwait Ess. Five Senses 296 What availes it thee now to enjoy the transitive honours of this life?
1845 [implied in: J. H. Newman Ess. Devel. Christian Doctr. 71 A belief in the transitiveness of worldly goods. (at transitiveness n.)].
1906 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republican 8 Mar. 6 At present he is in a transitive state.
