Dummy Objects
In English, dummy object pronouns tend to serve an ad hoc function, applying with less regularity than they do as subjects. Dummy objects are sometimes used to transform transitive verbs to transitive light verbs form, e.g. do → do it, "to engage in sexual intercourse"; make → make it, "to achieve success"; get → get it, "to comprehend". Prepositional objects are similar, e.g. with it, "up to date"; out of it, "dazed" or "not thinking". All of these phrases, of course, can also be taken literally. For instance:
- He ordered a cheeseburger, and even though it took them a while to make it, he did get some french fries with it.
Read more about this topic: Dummy Pronoun
Famous quotes containing the words dummy and/or objects:
“Fathers and Sons is not only the best of Turgenev’s novels, it is one of the most brilliant novels of the nineteenth century. Turgenev managed to do what he intended to do, to create a male character, a young Russian, who would affirm his—that character’s—absence of introspection and at the same time would not be a journalist’s dummy of the socialistic type.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
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