Hello Terrence;
The dog ate my homework. NB. active dog ate MyHomework
My homework was eaten by the dog. NB. passive MyHomework ate~ dog
Surprise! There's a linguistic explanation.
That name mystified me until I actually tried to answer your question.
Terrence Brannon wrote:
http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/d220v.htm
says ~ commutes or crosses connections to arguments: x u~ y ↔ y u x
To my mind, because binary ~ commutes or crosses, it should be called commute or
cross or switch.
what is passive about actively switching the arguments to a dyadic verb?
of course this bridge is already under the water, and it will never change, but
it fascinates me why "passive" was chosen as the name for this verb modifier.
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later ...
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