Weird case for Raise/Rise

Rose. MS-Word is correct, in this instance. For simple verb forms and constructions, it nearly always is.

This is a lot like the lay-lie confusion.

caw

The girl's brows rose.
The girl raised her brows.

The girl's arm rose to wave.
The girl raised her arm to wave.

Rechan said:

Raise is done to an object - the girl raised her arm.
Rise is when the object itself does it - the girl rose from bed.

What about "The girl's brows"?

Microsoft Word says rose. That would imply the object is doing it. But I would think raise would be the case - the brows aren't rising themselves.

Would "The girl's arm rose to wave" be correct, or would it be raised?

It seems like depending on how the sentence is written, the same object could raise or rise.

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Without any debate/discussion about the pros and cons of different specific sentence structures or ways of describing the actions of body parts:

The girl raised her brows.

The girl's brows rose.

The girl's arm rose to wave.

If we are treating the brows/arm as something that can rise on their own for literary purposes, then we use the language that supports that.

The distinction is between a transitive verb and an intransitive one. The difference between the two is that a transitive one takes a direct object.

(No! Don't run away! I'm going to explain all of the terms I used!)

A direct object is the thing that the verb does its verby thing all over.

• I made a sandwich.
• He gave her* a book.
• The girl raises her eyebrows.

Verbs that use direct objects are transitive.

A verb that doesn't take a direct object is intransitive. That's a verb where something or someone does a thing, but there's nothing all verbified except the thing doing the doing.

• I slept.
• He danced.
• Her eyebrows rose.

Got that? Great. Let's hit the heart of the confusion now.

Microsoft Word says rose. That would imply the object is doing it. But I would think raise would be the case - the brows aren't rising themselves.

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The difference between the verbs is a difference in what you want the reader to pay attention to.

If you want to keep the focus on the girl as a deliberate actor, emphasizing that the movement of her eyebrows is a chosen expression of her inner state, then say "The girl raised her eyebrows."

If you want to either imply that the eyebrow gesture was involuntary, or make no comment about why they went up, you can choose "The girl's eyebrows rose." You might do this about someone who is not the viewpoint character, for instance, when you're not trying to put the reader into her head.

But you can do it about the main character too: "I felt my eyebrows rise as he spoke." In that case, you're saying that the eyebrows pretty much rose of their own accord.

But in no case can you use the transitive verb without a direct object. "Her eyebrows raised" is simply not correct unless there's something that they raised**. They rose, or she raised them.

Does that help?

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* "her" is an indirect object, short for "to her". Indirect objects are things that get the benefit of the verby thing, but don't actually get verbified themselves.
** and now I'm thinking about being able to raise the dead by quirking an eyebrow.

Rechan said:

Microsoft Word says rose. That would imply the object is doing it. But I would think raise would be the case - the brows aren't rising themselves.

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"Rose" is correct. If you want to use "raise," you must say "The girl raised her brows."

"Raise" always takes an object. Someone must raise something.

In my observation (eg, editing Bulgarian journalists writing in English), the confusion tends to arise in the past tenses of 'rise' and 'raise' and esp that 'rise' is irregular (rise/rose/risen) whereas 'raise' is regular (raise/raised/raised). A common error I encounter is, eg, 'The dollar raised half a percent against the euro this morning.' Or 'The dollar has raised ...'

Interesting. Slightly off topic, but to this Brit "brow" means forehead and not eyebrow. But a quick google suggests that it can be either. Never knew that.