On 8 April 2017 at 13:07, kechpaja <kechpaja@comcast.net> wrote:
pIvHa' be unhealthy (v) pIv be healthy (v)
Do we know whether these two verbs apply only to beings, or whether they can be used for i.e. a healthy lifestyle or healthy food?
There's a part of me that wants to translate "the food is healthy" as {pIvmoH Soj}, since it's the people doing the eating who are going to be in good healthy, not the food itself ({qagh} notwithstanding).
English unfortunately conflates the two different meanings of "being in a state of good health" and "being conducive to a state of good health" into one word. Some pedants insist on reserving "healthy" for the former and using "healthful" for the latter, but that battle seems to have been lost long ago: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/healthy-or-healthful My instincts tell me that {pIv} means only "healthy" in the sense of "being in a state of good heatlh" and not the other meaning, though I can't prove it. (Marc Okrand did once write {yIpIv!} in a get-well letter, so there's that.) For the "healthful" meaning, I'm inclined to use {pIvmoH} as you are, or {rach}. -- De'vID