3.157 USAGE NOTE

You can use adjectives describing states after 'hang', 'lie', 'sit', and 'stand'.

• I used to lie awake watching the rain seep through the roof.
• A sparrow lies dead in the snow.
• Francis Marroux sat ashen-faced behind the wheel.
• She stood quite still, facing him.

'Gaze' and 'stare' can be used in a similar way with a limited set of adjectives.

• She stared at him wide-eyed.

3.158

You can use some combinations of verbs and adjectives to say that something does not happen to someone or something, or that someone does not have something.

'Go', 'pass', 'emerge', 'escape', and 'survive' are often used in combinations like these. The adjectives they combine with are often formed by adding 'un-' to past participles.

• Such men often go unrecognised in their lifetime.
• I think that on this occasion the guilty should go unpunished.
• Here in Soho he passed unnoticed.
• Fortunately we all escaped unscathed.
• Mostly, they go unarmed.
• The children always went naked.

3.159

Verbs such as 'blush', 'flame', 'glow', 'gleam', and 'run' can be used with colour adjectives after them to say what colour something is or what colour it becomes.

• They blew into the charcoal until it glowed red.
• The trees flamed scarlet against the grass.

3.160

'Die', 'return', and the passive verb 'be born' can have either adjectives or noun groups as complements.

• She died young.
• He died a disappointed man.
• If he had fought in the First World War, he might have returned a slightly different man.
• These girls have to work hard because they were born poor.
• He was born a slave.