Does this headline from Toms Hardware use a correct sense of the verb "tease" (the main sense of which in this area being to tantalize especially by arousing desire or curiosity often without intending to satisfy it):
Gigabyte Teases LED-Lit X99-UD4 Motherboard
I thought it should have been "teases with", because in this form it is not clear whether the brand teased the product, or teased people with the product. Thoughts?
Best Answer
This is a fairly new usage of tease, but I've seen it all too often in recent years at the online tech publishing sites where I've worked.
Essentially the word "Teases" in the headline "Gigabyte Teases LED-Lit X99-UD4 Motherboard" means "promotes in a teasing fashion." Why "a teasing fashion"? Because the product isn't ready for actual previewing yet, so the point is to drum up interest and free publicity (in the form of avid speculation) at what might be called Geek Rumor sites, long before there is any there there.
I don't know where the usage originated, but tech journalists are especially susceptible to this type of marketing department invitation to wax enthusiastic over a prospective product, perhaps because the hunger for new stuff in that field is insatiable. In any event, my guess is that tech journalists initially used "teasing" internally (that is, to other writers and editors at their publication and elsewhere in the industry) to refer to brief mentions or artist renderings of pre-prototype devices offered by the people at the lectern at manufacturers' or vendors' press events—and from there, the usage leaked into news reports about such events.
To demonstrate that no recently emerged usage is so new that it can't be worked to death, here are 29 "teases" headlines that a Google search finds on a site-specific search of a single tech website—PCWorld—in the past six years:
Sick of it yet?