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In the lyrics for the childrens song The Wheels on The Bus it says

The doors On The Bus go open and shut, all through the town.

Is shut correct in this context? Can you say "the door goes shut"?

laktak
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    It's "go open and shut" because it's a kids' song! You're supposed to mime the action of the doors opening and shutting, the wheels that turn (go round and round); the horn beeping ( goes beep beep); the mums who are chattering, (go chatter, chatter); the kids moving up and down (go up and down); the wipers cleaning the bus windscreen (go swish swish) etc.. etc.. Go tells us how the different things move or sound. – Mari-Lou A Mar 12 '15 at 16:20
  • The doors do two things: they go open and they shut. It is not that they go open and go shut. – Gorpik Mar 12 '15 at 16:28
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    And, like, on the bus, the doors were all like, "open and shut!" And the cow totally goes moo. – dang Mar 12 '15 at 17:29
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    Before getting on board a bus the doors are shut, the bus stops, and the doors open automatically. Once all the passengers are all on board the doors close/shut. Song: "The doors go open and shut, open and shut, open and shut all day long". The actions are repeated again and again. You could say "Elevators go up and down all day" If you say "The elevator goes up" it's true, it's grammatical but it's also very obvious. – Mari-Lou A Mar 12 '15 at 17:54

1 Answers1

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You are implying that:

[the doors] go open and shut

is to be interpreted as:

[the doors] go (open and shut)

i.e. tying the two actions to the same verb, but this need not be the case. The song uses a different version, namely:

[the doors] (go open) and shut

JMP
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  • In the song, the doors definitely go (open and shut). The wheels go (round and round); the people go (up and down); the horn goes (beep beep beep); and the wipers go (swish swish swish). Why should the doors be parsed differently? And how do doors "go open" anyway? Isn't that just as ungrammatical as them "going shut". – Peter Shor Mar 12 '15 at 17:13
  • @PeterShor - It's true that 'go open' and 'go shut' are not things one would normally say. However, the wording of "The doors on the bus go open and shut" is the way it is because 1) the use of go here maintains consistency with the other actions mentioned in the song, and (more importantly, perhaps) 2) it is also an implicit cue or instruction to the children listening to the song to act out the opening and closing motions of the doors. I can't help feeling that you're over-thinking this. :) – Erik Kowal Mar 12 '15 at 18:51
  • Ah, I didn't even think of that. I'll now go shut my mouth ;-) – laktak Mar 12 '15 at 20:32