“seize” or “seize of”, but not “seize”

2023-09-12 11:20:50

The verb seize can be constructed as a pronominal intransitive (seize something) the transitive (seize something), but it is not appropriate seize something.

However, you can find phrases in the media like these: “The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) seized more than $110 million in narcotics and illegal money,” “Canada seizes a Russian cargo plane at the airport in Toronto” or “The Civil Guard seizes a loot of 2 million euros in tobacco.”

As explained by Panhispanic dictionary of doubts, seize It is applied to the authorities with the sense of ‘seizing property related to criminal activities’. The most recommended construction of this verb It’s like intransitive pronominal, with a plugin introduced by of (someone seizes something). However, it is frequent, and also is considered valid, use it as transitive (someone seizes something). So, the formula someone seizeswith the verb in pronominal form and without the preposition of, it is not appropriate.

Thus, in the previous examples, the most appropriate thing would have been to write “The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) seized more than $110 million in narcotics and illegal money”, “Canada seizes a cargo plane Russian at the Toronto airport” and “The Civil Guard seizes a loot of 2 million euros in tobacco.”