A verb usage you don't see every day:
From United States v. Crist, the Fourth Amendment case that Orin discussed the other day, p. 2:
After [they] explained what they were doing, Crist angered.
I had never seen this usage of "anger" before. I just looked it up in the OED:
d. intr. (refl. pron. omitted.) rare.
c1400 Destr. Troy XV. 6911 Vlixes..angrit full sore.
1786 BURNS Sc. Drink xiii, When neebors anger at a plea.
Time to send it in to the OED folks! But, regarding "Crist angered," cf. "Jesus wept."
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(1) "Anger" is a noun here, as in "he is slow [to be moved] to anger."
(2) "Anger" is a verb, but transitive.
For instance, you could say "he is easy to offend." The corresponding phrase could be "he offends" (as in "he offends easily") (meaning 5d of "offend" in the OED), but "I offend him," as in "he is easy [for me] to offend" (meaning 5b).
Similarly, "he is slow [for someone] to anger," which refers to meaning 2a (transitive) of the verb "anger," not 2d (intransitive).
I think Sasha is commenting on the rarity of anger as a reflexive verb.
That said, I would think Sasha, who surely reads comments on blogs such as this, would be quite familiar with reflexive anger.
That's transitive. And the apparent infinitive construction of "quick to anger" could be construed to refer to the noun usage, as in "quick to wrath" or "quick to his gun". Less so "slow to anger".
c. refl. To vex oneself, become angry. Obs.
c1400 Destr. Troy VI. 2236 Angurs you noht.
Ibid. XVI. 7329 He angurt hym full euyll.
a1450 Knt. de la Tour (1868) 20 Anger you not..of that that he saithe.
"anger" is indeed commonly used as a verb, but only as a *transitive* verb (having an object, as in your example).
dr and Snaphappy:
It is pretty common in English for certain usages to survive in common expressions such as the ones you cite, which retain a life of their own even when the expression preserved there has otherwise become essentially extinct.
In fact, just from looking at the OED examples, I can't tell which is older, "anger" as a noun (first listed usage c. 1250) or "anger" as a verb. (Of course, what the OED lists doesn't purport to be complete.)
Handy usage -- I'm sold!
Indeed.
Some get it. Others never will.
Congratulations! You found a transitive usage for this verb. Kewel.
For the intransitive usage, I'd much prefer "to beanger." ("I beangered myself about that.") But that's just me.
Double Hi-Keeba Oops!
I keep reading this looking for where beanger is used intransitively. I can't find it.
How is the phrase "he angered" anything but active voice? Also, what does whether a verb is transitive or intransitive have to do with the voice of its use in a phrase? When did reflexivity become an attribute of English verbs?
If you look that up in Bartlett's you find Satchel Paige.
But there are reflexive verbs in English -- anything that takes "myself" etc., like "You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile."
As for privatrecht's bit about the Greek middle voice, this is something that's relevant for Greek verbs. I don't know any Greek, but my impression is the following: When talking about Greek verbs, "active voice" refers to verbs where the subject performs an action on something else. The "middle voice" is where you perform an action on yourself; this would include what in English would be reflexive verbs, and also verbs with the same function but with the reflexive pronoun omitted, like "anger" in the context discussed here.
My impression is that we use "active voice" more broadly in English to include performing an action on yourself (including for reflexive verbs), because we don't talk in terms of a "middle voice." Perhaps linguists use a different terminology, but this is how it's taught to students.
If you go upthread, you'll see I got there first.
Hmmm... Going by the OED, this means that if we disagree with Bernstein, he goes off to have a few drinks?