Re: Is "is" a verb?

From: DE781 (de781_at_aol.com)
Date: 06/24/04 

Date: 23 Jun 2004 18:32:52 -0700

"Michael West" <mbwest@bigpond.com> wrote in message news:<dz4Cc.50314$sj4.2257@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > DE781 wrote:
>
> >> But you can "go ALONE the climb", which in English becomes "go the
> >> climb alone". "I'm going the climb", except in certain rare
> >> contextual uses, is not heard often in English, since we can more
> >> easily say "I'm climbing", "I'm going climbing", or "I'm doing the
> >> climb" [even this is rare]. But, there ARE cases where one would say
> >> they're "going a climb alone".
> >
> > Of the seven items in quotes in that paragraph, the only ones that are
> > possible English utterances are "I'm climbing" and "I'm going climbing."
> >
> > ("I'm doing the climb" could work if "the climb" is a dance, or as an
> > emphatic insistence in the face of strong advice not to go climbing.)
>
> "Doing the walk", "doing the climb", "doing the trail",
> usually with reference to a particular, known route,
> are all unexceptional phrases among the outdoorsy
> types I know here in Australia, and, I feel sure, in the
> US as well.

Thank you, West! At least SOMEONE here be willing to tell it like it
is! And, YOU'RE right: a specific and known route DOES have to have
already been discussed. If someone were to randomly come up to me and
say, "I'm doing the climb" or "I'm doing the race", I'd think they
were nuts! THEN, as Daniels said, the first logical explanation would
be to think of "the climb" or "the race" as some sort of dance or some
crap. However, I NEVER claimed that "do the climb" was a commonplace
phrase, was heard often, was spoken often, could be a easily
understood stand-alone sentence, or that there weren't some, possibly
several, easier and more common ways to say the SAME THING. All's I
did say was that it IS an English sentence. Thank you for just
proving these bozos wrong. They're ALWAYS out to get me!

>
> I cannot imagine, however, substituting "going" in any
> of those.

That's because we say, "I'm going FOR the walk" and "I'm going ON the
trail"; in these examples, "go" must be intransitive. However, for
"doing the climb", the only reasonable "go" version would be "going
the climb". Hell, it might be something we'd only expect to hear from
Strateegery's mouth. But it IS a sentence!

"Going it" as an idiom is related to "roughing
> it", "toughing it out", "sticking it out" (in the sense of
> endurance), "hoofing it", "batching it" (living bachelor
> style"), and a few others.

Of course it is. Whereas in "going it alone", the "it" is the
"tough"/"rough" thing that is being "stuck out". The "it" is the
drama. The journey. It's most often a figurative, spiritual journey,
rather than a literal, physical one. Nevertheless, there's absolutely
NOTHING wrong with saying "I'm going (on) the mountain climb alone".