Talk:zip

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Does anyone know whether this verb is ergative? Does the following sentence make sense in English: I zipped my pants, therefore my pants zipped?

It doesn’t make sense to me as American English, but it would make sense to write this: "My pants zip up, so I zipped them up". —Stephen 20:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you :-) That sounds like two different senses. In "My pants zip up, so I zipped them up", the first part "My pants zip up" seems to mean "My pants are equipped with a zipper, they have the ability for someone to zip them". Whereas of course the second part means the physical action. Here's a better question. Say you're writing a novel and the hero's pants mysteriously get zipped up magically without anyone touching the zipper. Would it make sense to write "His pants mysteriously zipped up", or would you have to write "Something mysteriously zipped his pants up"?

Missing possibly[edit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zips --75.71.17.28 00:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Churchill Quote[edit]

After we had dressed for dinner--my zip hardly takes a minute to put on-- ... - Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume 4, The Hinge of Fate, Chapter 29. what exactly is he referring to? Eroica (talk) 11:01, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]