16 b. The administration screwed me over. c. Dad screwed the fresh peas over. d. The people were screwed over. e. The book was screwed over. These example sentences suggest the following argument struc- tures: screw over: A. Agent B. , where Theme is usually an animate human entity. This time we see that along with a required agent in the active construction is a syntactically required theme. We cannot speak of an agent “screwing over” without specifying the “screwed over”— a theme is not entailed in 4a, and the sentence is just not compre- hensible. Besides that, the theme must be of a specified set, the set of animate human entities, as it is often strange for inanimate objects to get “screwed over” by an agent. Although what is hap- pening in 3c might be understood, it is a bizarre reading; Dad could possi- bly have dropped or burned or smashed the “screwing them over.” Even saying he “messed up the fresh peas” (by adding too much salt) or “screwed up the fresh peas” (by leaving them out in the sun) makes mote sense. Similarly, in the passive construction, a theme is obligatory, and must usually be taken from the aforementioned set (3e is bizarre in the same way 3c is). While the people could have been “screwed over” by a bad president, the press, etc., the book could not be acted upon in the same way. This verb intrinsically suggests a manipulative action which can only be accomplished by a think- ing and reasoning individual upon another such individual who could presumably react to this action (a person will not usually put effort into maliciously manipulating fresh peas or books, which can have no observable reaction to being “screwed over”). Even if there is no agent involved, we do not usually describe inanimate objects as having been “screwed over,” in the verbal or adjectival passive. There are some exceptions; for example, “The country was screwed over (by Nixon)” is perfectly legitimate, even though “country” is not an animate individual. It is, however, presumably a collection of them, and therefore an entity which could react and be affected by the catastrophe of being “screwed over” in a way inanimate entities could not. We can now conclude that “mess up” and “screw up” differ from “screw over” in some cases of lexical analysis, argument structure, and truth conditions. Yet all three verbs are often used interchangeably, putting the more unusual circumstances discussed aside. (5) a. His teacher messed him up. (by giving him a bad grade) b. His teacher screwed him up. c. His teacher screwed him over. It seems intuitive that Rick “messing up” the cake in 3c can be overlooked because he was just careless about it; that doonit constnne Perhaps tt 1s has first birthday and he got a little “messy” The sentences above essentially connote the same cat- astrophe causation, with perhaps slight semantic variance. Each version is as likely to be uttered as the next under the same given context. Confusion in deciding which verb to employ may even arise due to this, since the verbs, as demonstrated, are really not identical. How, then, does a speaker choose between the verbs in this group when con- fronted with a situation calling for denotation of catastro- phe causation, given that such overlaps and confusion exist? Put another way, since the variances in meaning for these verbs are significant yet slight, would it thereby be advantageous to bypass this family in favor of some verb which does not produce such overlaps? This brings the discussion to the “scrod phenomenon,” the permanent adaptation of a newly invented catastrophe causation verb in the lexicon of many individuals intro- duced to it, something I have witnessed first-hand. The scientific extent of this phenomenon can- not be precisely tabu- lated, but I estimate that 10-12 students on campus __ (including myself), and an addi- tional 20 individuals associated with these students (family, § 2 friends, etc.) are part with tt. of it, meaning that they engage in proper everyday usage of the verb “scrod.” It all started with a paragraph I found highly fascinating in The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker: In Boston there is an old joke about a woman who landed at Logan Airport and asked the taxi driver, “Can you take me someplace where I can get scrod?” He replied, “Gee, that’s the first time I’ve heard it in the pluperfect subjunc- tive? I proceeded to share this linguistics joke with several of my friends early last year. Being from out west, they had initial difficulties deciphering why the joke was funny, though after I explained that “scrod” was a seafood spe- cialty in Boston, they decided it was at least somewhat amusing. Thereafter, we somehow discarded the lewd con- notation of the word (addressing that issue would likely result in another paper), and began using “scrod” almost purely as a catastrophe causation verb. Some versatile usages of “scrod”: (6) a. You scrod my shirt. (by spilling paint on it) b. The cops scrod me. (by giving me a speeding ticket) c. I was scrod (by the cops). d. That movie was scrod. (it was poorly. made)