Date:  Thu, 4 Dec 1997 09:48:15 -0500
From:  Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IS2.NYU.EDU>
Subject: Responsibility of (Was: No Heading)

At 09:31 AM 12/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I just finished 15 papers on Paradise Lost. Three of them described Adams'
>responsibility OF Eve's actions. Coincidence, collusion or something else?
>

Maybe they (con)fuse responsibility (for) with control or charge (of). Or
(this is a joke!) they are taking advantage of the fact that English was
still loose about some issues in the mid 17C -- I was just discussing on
another list the mid-17C poet Marvell's use of uncessant rather than modern
incessant.

Maybe not a joke, though -- OED2 has a separately numbered submeaning 1b for
"responsibility" as constructed with "of," citing Dickens in Old Cur. Shop
and Wilkie Collins in Black Robe. (Submeaning 1c, constructed with "for,"
gives a first cite from Shaw in Man & Superman....)

"Responsibility of": Survival or solecism? The lady or the tiger....

Now if they write "responsability" (aargh, and not given as an orthographoic
variant in OED), that's a hearse of a different color....

Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu