It seems to me that the problem lies in the semantic entailments of
"grow" not its grammatical properties.  As you note, you can grow
flowers, just as you can grow "a" single plant.  Isn't it rather that
the use of grow in this sense implies an animate object and thus
the use of  it with business strikes us as odd?

Greta Vollmer



>I'm sorry to ask such a basic question, but can anyone explain this usage:
>"Grow a business."
>...as opposed to "expand" a business.
>There clearly is the intransitive/transitive difference between grow and
>expand; but since one can (in the transitive sense) "grow tulips," why can't
>one (correctly) "grow a business"?  Is it the simple insertion of "a" that
>makes the difference?  What's happening there?
>Sorry again to ask such fundamental grammatical questions.
>
>- Jean Harper