In the past decade or two I've noticed something new: Â People have started talking about "growing" their business, meaning that they make their business get larger. Â It doesn't sound right to me.
As an intransitive verb, "grow" definitely does mean "get larger". Â But in the transitive sense, "grow" used to mean only "raise": Â You could grow crops, but it didn't mean you made them get bigger, it just meant you went through the process of planting, watering, harvesting and selling. Â You couldn't grow your garden, or your hair, or your business.
This new transitive "grow" makes my teeth ache. Â Am I just weird, or does anyone else dislike it too?
I'm with you, Bob. Â It's a pet peeve of mine--one that causes me to yell at the TV or radio whenever I hear it. Â *shudders*
When farmers grow their crops, aren't the crops their business? Why do you think that "grow my business" doesn't mean "raise"? When I hear it, it is actually used in contexts to distinguish it from other ways of making business larger, such as merger & acquisition. The use of this term signals a more "organic" approach to making your business larger by investing in and caring for it, as a farmer tends his land and crops.
To me it is a metaphor with sound implications: in an era where "personnel" has been oddly dehumanized into "human resources," it is refreshing to hear some terminology that implies business is organic, rather than mechanical, and that management implies care, rather than math.
I agree completely with Glenn. Â I personally do not use grow this way because it is rather new and unfamiliar. Â I would probably say, "make (or cause) a business to grow." Â But to "grow a business" makes perfect sense.
I agree that it makes sense. Â I just dislike it, and maybe that's only because I'm not used to it.
It's not the same as growing crops, though, because the implication in growing wheat is not that you make the wheat bigger; rather growing wheat is raising wheat, which is not the same thing. Â And maybe that's what I don't like about it; not that it doesn't make sense (it does), but that it sounds like someone adopted the usage in ignorance, not realizing the distinction.
Or maybe I'm just a whiner. Â Young people these days just have no respect for tradition, that's what's wrong with them! Â They go changing things willy-nilly, with no idea what the consequences may be, and as a result they end up sounding.... Â Like that.