On Mar 27, 2010, at 2:38 PM, David Tayler wrote:
> The main reason not to use the phrase is that it is excruciatingly bad
> grammar.
* * *
> Performance, of course, is not informed. People are informed. By extension,
> I concede the transfer to the action of the person:one can, of course, make
> an informed decision. "Make" takes on the temorary role of a stative verb.
> And one can have an informed opinion, again, there is an implied reference to
> the owner of the opinion.
> But can one make an informed performance?
"inform ...v.t. ...3. to give character to; pervade or permeate with resulting
effect on the character: A love of nature informed informed his writing"
From the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition
(1968) p. 730
So writing, or a building, or, yes, performance, can be "informed." This is
actually the "original" and most intuitive sense of the word "inform," which is
"to give form to" rather than the now more common "to impart knowledge." And
in this original sense it is things, not people, that are informed.
> Performance is also not “historically"--performance can be historic, but that
> means something very different.
Historically modifies "informed," not "performance."
"Informed" is an adjective here: the performance is described as being informed
in some manner. And if you're going to describe that adjective (in what way
is it informed? what informs it?), you need an adverb, such as, for example,
"historically."
I don't think "performance to which considerations of historical practice have
given character" would have caught on. "PTWCOHPHGC" makes a lousy acronym, at
least in English.
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