 Re: The book reads well.
Like Siruss, I've found this thread very informative (and will also have to reread it).
Two tangential points:
1. Middle voice: I agree that it's better to reserve this term for the reflexive/self-advantageous voice that we find e.g. in Greek.
2. "To read" in the sense "to bear reading", "to be readable" is recorded from 1668; in the sense, "to have a specified character when read", "to produce a certain impression on the reader", from 1731.
Unfortunately my dictionary only gives one example:
i) ...whose productions...read better than they act... (1789)
But here are some characteristic literary instances:
ii) This is typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly comedy. (Stevenson, in Memories and Portraits)
iii) For although I must confess it reads very much like an application or a testimonial or some such thing as that, I can assure you I am writing this in fear and trembling with a sinking heart. (Wells, in Ann Veronica)
iv) ...for the old gentleman's speech, considered as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd; but considered as a hoax on Anastasius, it reads excellently. (De Quincey, in the Opium Eater)
v) This reads like the evasion of the national historians to disguise the fact discreditable to their hero. (Gibbon, in Decline & Fall)
vi) It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence of many witnesses, and likewise that of the official records of Esmeralda District, is easily obtainable in proof that it is a true history. (Twain, in Roughing It)
MrP  |