BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 11:50 AM

The other thing that gets me, with educational institutions, are cutesy signs such as this:

*******Kids Preschool
because we Kare!

And they are supposed to set an example!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 11:49 AM

"..the women of Bangor..."

it is impossible to show, even in MY whimsical typing style, the tears running down my face and uncontrolled paroxysms of laughter as I hit that phrase....suffice it to say that I am humbled, Amos. *grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 10:56 AM

And if there is a dispute between mentor and mentee which leads to the arangement being cancelled mentee becomes dementored,and the mentor becomes demented.

I think notices like that should count as constructive dismissal.

And if you attack someone they become an aggressee. And a prisoner gets known as a captee instead of a captive.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: beadie
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 10:53 AM

Edwin Newman, where are you now that we need you so?


I'm still upset at the tendency to take a verb (for instance - "to orient"), use it in its process form ("orientation"), and then return it to the verb form without shedding all of the excess letters ("to orientate").

For crying out loud, how long will it be before we are "implementating" things? . . . or experimentating?

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 10:45 AM

Mentee. MENTEE??? Jesus wept!! I suppose thanks to these barbarians that tutors will be advertising for tutees? Residents of Luxor will become Luxees? And the women of Bangor...what will become of them????


A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 04:42 AM

Things get worse.... Its bad enough to have "mentor" used as a verb without having the unfortunate recipient known as a "mentee"! This one appeared on our college noticeboard lately. I thought it was just a local aberration - but apparently not.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:58 PM

no...well...yes...but "Google" knew they were using that notion as part of their identity, I just forgot to make the connection...it's the folk process!!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 09:09 PM

Aren't you confusing google with googol?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:46 PM

I then we can offer them a "Kleenex."

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:42 PM

Google a good word, I think. There's no other word meaningbteh same, and it looks and sounds good.

I like it when a trademark word takes off this way, and the owners lose control of it - I mean, when you hoover the floor, you are more than likely to be using some other make of vacuum cleaner; when you want to keep your tea warm, you use a thermos flask, but it probably will be a different make entirely; and when you say you wrote something in biro, noone assumes that's the type of ballpoint pen you actually used.

The people who own the trademarks hate that, but I think we owe it to them to get up their noses in that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:40 PM

Another one: snowballed, as in the South Shore of Massachusetts got snowballed, today. Another foot of the white stuff...heyaNight Owl!!**BG**

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 06:45 PM

a google was 1 followed by a hundred zeros...but then someone came up with 'googleplex' which was one followed by a Google of zerosnow, I suppose *I* could claim there was a 'googlemultiplex', or 1 followed by a googleplex of zeros. It's easy to construct names.

(and Amos..I was more proud of rhythming 'summit' with 'bum, it'...*grin*)

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:27 PM

Does anyone ever use "surmount" anymore? Was it ever "sir mount?" **BG**

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST, herc
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:07 PM

When I bed my next target, I will gladly post here that I summited.

D

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Wa Ban Zhou
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 04:57 PM

One of the nice things for me about living and teaching English in China is that no one ever wanted to ballpark anything with me.
                                           Wa Ban Zhou

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 04:53 PM

Nigel - What dictionary were you using that didn't have "google" in it? The search engine "Google" borrowed the word from mathematics where it means an extremely large number - the largest one that has been given a name. I know mathematicians have been using it for at least thirty years. A math professor at the college where I used to work had personalized license plates on his car that read "GOOGLE" way back in the 70's.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 04:00 PM

Bill, that was very adroit indeed!!

Now, about "quotage"...aren't you just the tiniest bit ashamed?? LOL!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 03:54 PM

LOL!! Well-done, ol' curmudgeon!!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 03:33 PM

oh...by the way, Genie!

"some guy said he couldn't stomach
the.. " now THERE'S one to research!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 03:29 PM

"I don't Kipple, and I don't Google,
We old pedants are much too froogle.
I'll just type some words and search;
My reputation I'll not besmirch.

You young folks go ahead and 'summit',
I'll just sit here on my bum, (it
Serves me well now in my dotage),
As I comment on your heinous quoteage."

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 02:24 PM

Very good daylia!!. I google frequently, myself. I used to do other things such as lycos or crawl, and have even been known to hotbot around, but really, all that is in the past. Now, I just google. I don't dogpile anymore, either! Googling is the greatest indoor sport since Parcheesi, if you ask me. Except maybe for Ouijaing. Haven't Ouija'd in a coon's age, though. I used to spend a lot of time, when I was younger, Kipling, too. Those were the good old days.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: *daylia*
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 01:35 PM

Quite often I find myself toasting some toast,
and sometimes I catch myself boasting a boast.
But now I intend to start roasting a roast
So cheers to you all! I'm posting this post!

:)   daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 01:09 PM

Dont get me wrong, genie. I have no objection to languages changing, or using verbs as nouns. I just sometimes think new coinages are quiet amusing. And frequently unnecessary. When I get round to climbing Everest, I will announce on this forum that I got to the top, not that I summitted(summited?).

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Genie
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:31 PM

When I first eyed an article, a few years back, where some guy said he couldn't stomach the "current trend" of using dishing out nouns as verbs, I bought into that idea -- that it was new. Then, on reflection, I tabled the protest, realizing that verbs have spawned nouns and vice-versa for centuries.

The "verbification" of a noun bothers me less than the (apparent) attempt to be really "with it" and clever. ("Can you ballpark the figure for me?" And [shudder] the dreaded "Oh, baby, how you impacted me when I first saw you!"] And the worst of all is that, given the speed of worldwide communication today, any grammatical mistake or neologism that is used on TV (in a sitcom or a news broadcast or commentary) almost instantly makes it into currently practiced English parlance -- so the next edition of Merriam-Webster will give it as accepted usage!

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 11:14 AM

Nigel, agreed, but I wasn't aware this was supposed to be only about words which are "dictionaried!" **RBG** You heard it here, first!

I did read about "to google" in an article which said it has entered the general population of Internet surfers. The article was specific about how it went from a company name to being used as a verb.

How about downsizing? How long has to downsize been used?

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 11:08 AM

One of the newest in the computer world is "to slashdot" from www.slashdot.org. It means to become wildly successful.

Me, I hate "prioritize." And "stonewall." And especially the redundant "at this point in time" -- better to say "at this point" or "at this time" because, after all, you don't say "at this point in space" do you? (If so, you got problems unless you're in science or engineering.)

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:55 AM

well, some are useful, clever, and actually help avoid longer constructions, but some are just cutesy affectations, like 'authoring'   'guesting' and 'transitioning'.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:47 AM

Kat: I'm not sure I'd even accept 'Google' as a noun. It's a tradename which doesn't yet seem to have made it into the dictionaries. If it ever does it will probably go in as both noun and verb.
The term seems much in used on-line, but if that were a means of being accepted for dictonaries we would start getting some of the wierder expressions from text messaging in. Such as 'l8r' for 'later'.
For most of my life the changes in the dictionary have been mainly for imported words now in English usage, and words invented to cover new ideas and science (moon walk, astronaut...etc.,)

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:32 AM

Lots of computer related ones, I suspect, one of which is to google:-). Funny, so far I've not heard anyone say they "yahooed."

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:31 AM

I recently heard my first use of the verb "to target" in a new meaning. It used to mean "to aim at something"(itself a noun-as-verb coinage). The new meaning I heard was when I heard it used to mean "to reach a target" or "to get there" the other day.The sentence was"We managed to target last year". At least I think it's a new usage(in England,at least), I can't recall hearing that before.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:26 AM

yup...made it REAL shiny! (easier to dazzle the boss)

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:23 AM

1. Relating to, on, or at a surface: surface algae in the water. 2. Relating to or occurring on or near the surface of the earth. 3a. Superficial. b. Apparent as opposed to real.
VERB: Inflected forms: sur·faced, sur·fac·ing, sur·fac·es

TRANSITIVE VERB: To provide with a surface or apply a surface to: surface a table with walnut; surface a road with asphalt.
INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To rise to the surface. 2. To emerge after concealment. 3. To work or dig a mine at or near the surface of the ground.

I guess they took the data and put varnish on it, then?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 09:59 AM

coffee snobs are now having gatherings where they chat about blends, etc., and then proceed to "cupping"...arrrggghhh!!

heard in an office.."my staff has surfaced some useful data on that subject."

Subject: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 09:01 AM

A subject dear to the hearts of pedantic old fogey types. This was a new one on me, on BBC News today. Someone was "the youngest person to summit Everest", and the phrase was used again later in the bulletin. Can't say I'll be using this phrase myself, I think it sounds stupid, and "trying to be modern". Any other good examples knocking around.