John Pendley wrote:
>
> > >> Ergh! is right. When's the last time you went to an "exhibition"
> > >> (noun) as
> > >> opposed to an "exhibit" (verb)? I'm convinced that everyone goes to
> > >> "exhibits" nowadays.
>
> > Drat, I was late in on this one: "exhibit" is a noun ... there are
> > "exhibits" in exhibitions, or even in court.
>
> Surely, It's both: "I'm going to exhibit some of my B&W work in that new
> gallery in a few weeks". In which case, the display of my work would be
> an exhibition, of course.
Since I started this, I should bow to those who got it right. "Exhibit" is
indeed a noun meaning "that which is exhibited," or "the act of exhibiting."
This, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, the closeest we
Americans have to the OED: its definitions are not based on historical
principles but on the contributions (not "input") of informed users of
American English. I'm convinced, however, that the use of "exhibit" as a
noun has come about in my lifetime and that it used to used exclusively as a
verb. That's still the way I use it. The same thing has happened with
other words, through usage. And then there's the matter of past tense and
past participles regularization: the past participle of "light" used to be
"lit." Now, because of the tendancy to regularize verb endings--which has
been going on for centuries--"lighted" has become more and more common as
the past participle during my lifetime. I wonder if this all started with
Hemingway's "A Clean, Well Lighted Place."
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