I wish to employ the traditional “that sounds very, very bad” rule of grammer. If my head hurts, or I say/think “What the HELL is he smoking?” while reading it, don’t use it.
No, Dan, you are correct. Serve has both transitive and intransitive forms.
Here is this copyeditor’s highly technical analysis of “tasks at” (and “try at” as well): bleccch! I’d probably break my pencil in my haste to remove it from any ms. that crossed my desk.
Well… I say it’s a transitive verb and it does have a direct object. It’s a phrasal verb. The preposition that follows “tasks” is a verbal particle, and the following verbal clause (“developing a more sophisticated relationship to…” is not part of a prepositional phrase with “at” as the head- it’s the direct object of the phrasal verb “tasks at.”
Which I have never heard before in my life and sounds bizarre to me.
-fh
Of course, there are many real estate ads which say such things as “this house sleeps six people comfortably”. Not that anyone has to approve of the usage, of course.
Very true; many words can shift parts of speech–a book is “a good read,” a “plate of food” refers to the amount of food that will go on a plate. There’s a name for this; synecdoche? Anyway, saying a house “sleeps six” is to use a different meaning of “sleep.” My example used sleep to mean “slumber,” while the real-estate ad example uses it to mean “accommodate while they are sleeping.” Two different-but-related words that happen to look and sound the same, is my position on this.
Glad to oblige:
Any verb can have an indirect object, as indirect objects are usually (always? examples fail me) the objects of prepositions and you can always tack a prepositional phrase onto a clause. Intransitive verbs, however, can only have indirect objects and never direct objects.
In other words, a transitive verb’s not having a direct object in a particular instance doesn’t change the fact that it’s transitive. If it can have a direct object, it is a transitive verb.
It’s been over 20 years since my last grammar class, but this statement doesn’t jibe with what I think I know. This site explains objects the way I remember them: A transitive verb can take a direct object, and a transitive verb with a direct object might take an indirect object. There can be no indirect object without a direct object. And an object of a preposition is just that: the object of the preposition. It can’t be the object of a verb, indirect or otherwise. In enid666’s horrible sentence, “tasks at developing…” is an adverbial prepositional phrase, I think.
If you’ve ever read through the “usage notes” in the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, you’ve probably noticed that their Usage Panel is never even very close to unanimity in accepting or rejecting a particular usage. But just because one can use convoluted reasoning to decide that a sentence is legitimate doesn’t mean that it’s wise to use it.
Well, I hate to keep setting myself up as Mr. Schoolteacher here; I’m just waiting to get pitted over this. I’m being nice! Really! But:
“I donate to the Salvation Army.”
“The Salvation Army,” the indirect object of the verb “donate,” is also the object of the preposition “to.” There is no direct object; we don’t know what the speaker gives, only to whom/what it is given. “Donate” is still in this case a transitive verb; we know something is being given, which would be the direct object if it were there, but it ain’t.
The presence of the preposition “to” is what makes the object indirect. Without a preposition, any object is a direct object, or appears to be one. Example: “I donate the Salvation Army.” This puts The Salvation Army in the position of direct object, i.e., the thing that is donated. It raises the question, “To whom do you donate the Salvation Army?”
Finally, intransitive verbs cannot have direct objects. Example: “To go.” You can’t go someone; you can only go to or from or for someone (and so on; insert preposition of choice).
Honest, folks, you can trust me; I spent years as a copyeditor and more years teaching university-level composition. I’m also a grammar nerd; on a recent birthday I asked for (and received) the Chicago Manual, 14th ed.
[sub]I’ll butt out now.[/sub]
“I gave her the book.”
In the real world not many verbs are straight up transitive or intransitive. Some have a lot of transitivity, some have very little. A good test is to try and make a sentence with the verb in the passive form. If you can’t, it’s pretty intransitive. But even that isn’t bulletproof. There’s exceptions, and verbs change over time.
-fh
Good call. I was trying to think of an example of a prepositionless intransitive verb and couldn’t (though in my defense, I was at work at the time, and distracted).
On the subject of exceptions, I have massive sympathy for any nonnative speaker trying to learn English, because EVERY rule seems to have an exception.
Unless, of course, the plural of Kleenex really IS “Kleenices.” 
I still can’t think of a sentence that has an indirect object not in a prepositional phrase and lacks a direct object.
Actually, your example illustrates the concept of metonymy, defined by my college poetry instructor as “container for thing contained”. Similarly, “the White House” refers to the current USA presidential administration; “Wall Street”, the major stock exchanges and brokerages; “Detroit”, the auto industry.
Synecdoche refers to the use of “part” to symbolize “whole”. Relief pitchers are “arms in the bullpen”; Frank Sinatra, “Old Blue Eyes”; Helen of Troy, “The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships”. You can get eggs at a “coffee shop”, or compact discs at a “book store”.
I majored in English and do some editing. Jackelope and I both know what we’re talking about, even if we don’t always fall in lock step with each other. Grammar is an art as well as a science…