English Language & Usage Asked on August 17, 2021
I’m a gen-X native Australian English speaker and am listening to a YouTube video by a millennial native Australian English speaker in which he uses "to rent out" to refer to the person paying for the use of a service or infrastructure.
As a language nerd it sounded wrong to me, but I’m not certain, and checking various online dictionaries hasn’t resolved it though some other online forums seemed to have some support both for my feeling, and that both are right. The third possibility is that this is a recent change in English usage in the last 20 to 30 years.
My instinct is that the owner offers it "out" so "out" fits for the owner providing it. But when I thinking about it "out" seems to have some similar usages to "up" in phrasal verbs indicating completeness or totality, in which "rent out" might be similar to "eat up" indicating the person is paying for use of the entire thing, not sharing with other renters.
Since I trust the contributors to this site more than other English forums I’m interested in your expert opinions and insights. Which use/uses is/are correct? Has it always been this way or is it undergoing change?
Here’s the exact quote from the video:
Worldcom didn’t build landline cables or cellphone towers, but instead would rent out this infrastructure from other companies.
(Emphasis added by me.)
This is probably not correct usage; a verification in an online up to date¹ dictionary shows that "out" is used only in the case when "rent" means "receiving" money in return for allowing someone to use your property, and at that it is an optional particle.
¹ The dictionary used, from which is taken the following reference, results from a new release in March 21
(OALD)
1 [transitive, intransitive] to regularly pay money to somebody so that you can use something that they own, such as a house, a room, some land, etc.
♦Are you looking to buy or rent?
rent something to rent a house/an apartment to live in rented accommodation/housing/property
♦ The property is available to rent on a short-term lease.
♦ We're looking for a house to rent in the area.
rent something from somebody
♦ Who do you rent the land from?2 [transitive] to allow somebody to use something that you own such as a house or some land in exchange for regular payments
rent something (out)
♦ We rented our house out for a year when we went abroad.
♦ She bought a three-bedroom flat with the objective of renting two rooms.
♦ He is making a profit from renting out the property.
rent something (out) to somebody
♦ He rents rooms in his house to students.
♦ The land is rented out to other farmers.
♦ She agreed to rent the room to me.
I rather believe that you can trust your instinct and that the somewhat confusing word context is more likely to be at the root of an error in that speaker's English. An additional fact that tends to confirm this use of "out" is what can be read at the entry for this adverb in The SOED.
(SOED) 2 Expr. motion or direction away from oneself, a center, a familiar place, the shore, etc., esp. to a remote point, to sea, to war, etc. Now also spec. (of a boat, train, post, etc.) going out, departing. [since] Old English b From one's control or possession into that of others [since] Late Middle English.
in the same entry is still found the following.
6 To an end, completely, thoroughly, fully, to the utmost degree. Middle English.
Nevertheless, "2b" seems to prevail and coincide nicely with the sense in n° 2 of OALD.
Remark: It is to be noted that this verb is not considered to be a phrasal verb, at least not in OALD.
Answered by LPH on August 17, 2021
Get help from others!
Recent Answers
Recent Questions
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP