"protest the Pope;" "shop Gap online"

[BellevilleRendezvous]

I am the first to admit that I don't know all the right terms for parts of grammar (GCSE English did away with all that!) so am not sure if this is something to do with transitive and intransitive verbs ... but surely these phrases are missing some vital words like "about" or "at"?

Sorry if this has already been done here, I imagine it has but couldn't see a likely looking thread.

If anyone can enlighten me about the grammatical rules these phrases break, that would be appreciated!

It's American. It's correct to say "Protest the Pope" in the States. It's not all bad, either- they say "in back", which is quite logical in a language which allows you to say "in front", yet for no reason at all, we don't.

ok, so then "shop Gap" is correct because Gap is an American company with American marketing.

But the UK organisation set up by British people to gather support for their opposition to the Papal visit, is not correct because it has nothing to do with America.

So this is an Americanism creeping its way into common British English usage ... not sure I like it!

That's exactly what it is, and this particular one annoys me because it removes the linguistic difference between "Protest the Pope" and "Protest the Pope's innocence" which are completely different in meaning.

If it wasn't for the Americans we would be saying "Think you..?" instead of "Do you think..?", though of course the hypothetical nature of this question has much more relevance for them than for us...

i dont care
i am SO SO SO pleased gap have a website now