Noncompositional

The passive construction (at least in English, Spanish, Japanese, and probably many other languages) promotes what is normally a direct object to the subject position, demoting the subject to an oblique position that may be omitted (not to be confused with some rhetorically similar moves). However, the poor subject, if it is semantically an intentional actor, is certainly still part of the sentential semantics. This can be demonstrated by adding a purpose clause:

Many believe their leader was killed simply to demonstrate the power of the opposition.

Now, consider the following paragraph, from a recent special from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, on 9 hidden gems.

What the heck is a hidden gem, anyway? The phrase rises from the mist of culinary cliché, a cheery, primordial beast eager to swallow any eye-opening San Francisco dining experience that wanders unchained out of our delicious quotidian. So precious! So unexpected! It’s hard to lift a fork around here without poking it into something tasty and unique, be it handmade sushi in a Tenderloin liquor store or home-style Polish in West Portal. So why draw a line? This is a city of hidden gems by design — opening a Sizzler in SF limits would be front-page food news — and even those establishments that receive the most press would be labeled “kooky food” by puzzled Midwesterners. Good for them. Below is a handful of my personal hidden gems, called that for whatever reason — and to be a foodie show-off. (Marke B.)

The final sentence has a passive verb, called, or perhaps an adjective derived from such a passive verb. This can easily appear with a purpose clause (or at least something that looks like it). This should be as easily interpreted as, say:

“Deku” means “wooden figurine”, and Deku Babas are likely called that to emphasize they are plants. (Wikipedia)

But for some reason, the foodie clause was totally strange to me. I had to read it about three times before I understood it. At first I read it as similar to ah, to be a kid again. So why is it so odd?

One possibility is that it is preceded by for whatever reason, which would seem to exhaust the list of reasons that are going to be given, so the following material is taken to be something else.

Another possibility is that (for whatever reason) there are some additional restrictions on purpose clauses if their main verb is (copular) be. What sort of restrictions? Perhaps the subject of be a N is has to be a known referent in the discourse, and so its co-occurrence with the passive makes this seem odd (as the passive can be used because some participant in an event is unknown). Certainly this seems mostly to be true, since something like These rumors were spread to be a jerk sounds horrible, as does That book was probably written to be (a) visionary. (In fact, these sentences tend to have the “purpose of patient” readings, like this house was built to be a safehaven). But there are some cases that I could find:

However, I called Mr. Brandt up and apologized for my rude words, as another editor pointed my mistakes out to him. This wasn’t done for the sake of politics; this was done to be a decent human being. (User:Linuxbeak) And with the Fused album, it was done to be a band, to be so we could record it live. (HardRadio Hard Views)

Interestingly, this time the passive does not seem to serve the purpose of obscuring the agent, since the previous context makes it abundantly clear who that is. And I think that a context like the following can give some improvement: Why did I spread the rumors? Why did I fan the flames? It was necessary for our cause. They had to be spread. But these rumors were not spread because I felt malicious. No: they were spread to be a dedicated leader. Maybe a little better?

Okay, back to the original sentence. Unfortunately for me, it should be totally clear from the context who is being a foodie, yet it still seems odd. So that alone can’t be it. I think there may be some additional restrictions: for instance, if the passive verb is done, things get much better. Just replace they were spread with this (thing) was done, and I think it improves. Strange.

But hey, at least one author and editor thought it was perfectly fine, so who am I to complain?