Eggcorn Forum

This is a syntactically as well as lexically interesting way of speaking. People who lord it with no preposition following are playing the part of a lord (as I understand the phrase, at least). The it is not (or at best is far from clearly) a direct object. (I have heard these token or false objects discussed by linguists, but don’t remember what they called them.) The meaning and the syntax are very closely parallel to something like swagger it (as spoken by the ruffian in Bywater to Frodo); the syntax and the derivation from a noun are paralleled in hoof it (along the road) . When people lord it over others they are putting the others down. The braggart and those who are demeaned are the two participants.

So confident was Blair of this that he lauded it over his critics, sneering before parliament…

Lenigas has recently taken to Twitter to laud it over the market makers as the value of the company has jumped almost 350 per cent

Blair, and similarly Lenigas, is bragging about himself, thinking himself admirable and demeaning the critics or market makers as his predictions rather than theirs are (to be) borne out.
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But you get some funny-sounding cases with laud which go a little beyond these two, more standard, constructions

[bureaucrats who usurp authority are] lauding it over people’s heads

This one probably is mostly lord it over in the sense described above, but with an admixture of the phrase going/operating over their heads , thus meaning something like “taking no account of them, giving them no say in the matter” and probably hold it/something over their heads , meaning to threaten them with the possibility of “it”, which becomes more direct-object-like.

she thought that he would laud this over her, but he appeared to be sympathetic to her situation

As said above, we expect people to lord it over other people, but here “this” transforms the almost meaningless it into a clear direct object, which seems to refer to the grounds or the excuse the “lorder” has for looking down on the object of over. The subject ( he ) seems (in the initially expected scenario) to hold a threat impending metaphorically above her, holding (a) past offense(s) over her head (or against her), and looking down on her for those offenses. I guess the above quote means something like “she thought he would make a big deal out of ‘this’ (situation), so as to think less of her/look down on her/hold her accountable for ‘this’ (situation), but (surprisingly) he seemed rather to be sympathetic.”

Mrs. De Vere stood beside her daughter, like a proud crow, lauding over her daughter’s performance

Here I would have expected the author to say Mrs. DV was presiding over the performance, glorying in it (thinking highly of it, i.e. lauding it?), lording (it) over, in the sense of looking down on, not the performance but those listening to it, who are not mentioned. If it said lauding her daughter’s performance it would make more sense. As it is, it’s an odd one.

Fanny had lauded over her the fact that she was married to a landed gentleman while Sarah had married a tradesman.

Again, the direct object of the verb laud (extraposed, in quite normal fashion, to follow the over her phrase) seems to be the grounds for Fanny’s “despision”, namely the complex the fact that -clause. (“Her” and “Sarah” in this example refer to the same person.)
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Insofar as laud it means “cause it (the direct object) to be prominent”, “play it up” so to speak, it makes sense to understand the it as the grounds for despising the object(s) of over . In lauding it over them you make it prominent in your own thinking and, like as not, speak and act so as to make it prominent in their and others’ minds as well.
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I should probably look for similar examples with lord it and they are likely out there, but anyway.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2021-07-28 07:40:06)