To thrive positevely

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olegv

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Please explain to me what collocation of thriving positive could mean? Many thanks.
 
Please explain to me what collocation of thriving positive could mean? Many thanks.

Do you have some context for it?
 
it is taken from Oxford Collocations Dictionary - no explanation is given
 
Well 'positively' does not appear in the top 100 collocatess, or top 54 adverb collocates, of 'thrive' in COCA, so I think the Oxford Collocations Dictionary has slipped up
 
I have a sample sentence from the Oxford Collocation dictionary:

thrive positively (esp.BrE)
"a culture which positively thrives on new ideas"


ps. It doesn't look like a fixed collocation, does it? If so, then the meaning can easily be worked out.
 
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Reversing the collocation changes the meaning completely.

'thrive positively' = 'thrive in a beneficial way'

'positively thrive' = 'definitely thrive'

I agree with 5jj: 'I think the Oxford Collocations Dictionary has slipped up'.

Rover

EDIT: 'Thrive' is such a positive word anyway, I doubt anything could be said to thrive negatively.
 
Last edited:
Reversing the collocation changes the meaning completely.

'thrive positively' = 'thrive in a beneficial way'

'positively thrive' = 'definitely thrive'

I agree with 5jj: 'I think the Oxford Collocations Dictionary has slipped up'.

Rover

EDIT: 'Thrive' is such a positive word anyway, I doubt anything could be said to thrive negatively.


That could be my fault while copying from the Oxford Collocation Dictionary. In fact, that's how it looks there:

thrive verb
adv,
positively ( esp. BrE)
"a culture which positively ~s on new ideas"

From how it is presented in the dictionary, it's hard to tell the exact word order unless you have the sentence itself. So, the confusion is quite understandable.
 
Rover's explanation fits this example.
 
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