26. He offered them their lives if they would abjure their religion.
An intransitive verb is sometimes made transitive by the aid of a
preposition.
+Example.+--All his friends _laughed_ at him = He _was laughed at_
(ridiculed) by all his friends.
+Remark.+---_Was laughed at_ may be treated as one verb. Some grammarians,
however, would call _at_ an adverb. The intransitive verb and preposition
are together equivalent to a transitive verb in the passive voice.
+Direction.+--_Change the voice of the following verbs:--_
27. This artful fellow has imposed upon us all.
28. The speaker did not even touch upon this topic.
29. He dropped the matter there, and did not refer to it afterward.
+Remark.+--The following sentences present a peculiar idiomatic
construction. A transitive verb which, in the active voice, is followed by
an object complement and a prepositional phrase, takes, in the passive, the
principal word of the phrase for its subject, retaining the complement and
the preposition to complete its meaning; as, They _took care of it, It was
taken care of._
+Direction.+--_Put the following sentences into several different forms,
and determine which is the best:--_
30. His original purpose was lost sight of (forgotten).
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