BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 07:41 PM

Once upon a time it was held that horses sweated, men perspired, and women glowed. For the same reason I would be highly reluctant to describe a woman as having been spayed! :>) It's a word I associate with pets.

But there is no justification for the coinage of hysterectomized!! Why not a simple construction, such as "underwent a hysterectomy", "had her womb cut out" or more politely, perhaps, "underwent surgery for feminine complications"? It seems to me we don't really need a coinage for everything, and that some things are (and should be) actually dignified by circumlocutions.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 07:52 PM

I misremembered a movie in another thread recently (nobody noticed, hehe), but what I meant to say was that in the movie, Picasso Summer, Michel Legrande wrote a song which was used as background music which had the words, "Summer me, winter me..."    Now what does that mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 08:54 PM

A number of those mentioned so far became noticable in the 1970s, although their history is probably older. Civil servants coined many of them- British, Australian, American, Canadian- their papers (Bunff) are too boring to read, but going through their memos would turn up older dates for many of these verbs from nouns.

Mentioned above- to stomach. This is an old one, first in print in 1523.
And Mary, if you were a gardener, you would know that to winter, or to summer, plants, roots, bulbs is old usage indeed. Do you have to winterize your car where you live? Just winter me where it is warm.

Medical people use a lot of these words- lobotomize for example, from the 1930s. Hysterectomize is horrible, I agree. (Er, the first is even worse).

While I was checking a word here, I ran across gnosticize (from Gnostic) in the Oxford. Dates back to the 1860s in print.

Verbicizing nouns has been going on in English since the language became identifiable as a language.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 10:18 PM

Oh, please, Amos! Not the old-fashioned Victorian oblique references to unmentionable parts! We fought long and hard to be able to say vagina, penis, uterus, ovulate, cervix, testicles, etc. without having to couch them in such terms! And, actually we should make them take back "hyster" since it perpetuates that hysterical sterotype of a woman. So, what? They took it out, so I can no longer be hysterical?! I am woman hear me roar!**bg**

I equate spayed with pets, too, BUT I am a cat AND it's kind of like the Virginian said, "Smile when you call me that!" I wouldn't want just anyone to refer to it that way, but I can and will when referring to myself.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:15 PM

Well, I dunno kat, about circulating terms and then telling people only you can use them. Seems a tad unfair to me. Tell ya what -- I'll retract the Victorian slant, and call you spayed, if you'll lower the bar on fair use! :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:32 PM

Spayed, of course, is when even the urge to mate is taken away- so human beings do not get spayed. They get only the capacity to bear young taken away.

Same with 'neutering'. Male animals get neutered- human males get the duct cut, so the urge to mate is intact, only the means to reproduce has been compromised.

As you all know. But it bothers me to hear those phrases tossed around so freely and inaccurately. You can say you got yourself 'fixed', though!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:49 PM

The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug, as Mark Twain pointed out.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:49 PM

Okay, okay, "fixed" it is, but I didn't feel broke(n)! **BG** Darn, there goes Nigel's great turn of phrase! darn, I guess i just had an uterectomy...so maybe they uterized me? LOL!!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 12:20 AM

I like 'uterectomy'!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 12:32 AM

Why, thank yew! Remember you read it here, first! What a hot spot Mudcat is!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 05:39 AM

My pet hates are 'Parenting', and an new one which I keep hearing spouted ad nauseam by 'IT Professionals' (whatever they are!) - 'Leverage', as in "We need to leverage this up" - surely it should be "We need to lever this up" or "We need to apply leverage to this"?

It's also their practice to pronounce it the US way here in the UK, with a short 'e' instead of the long-'e' UK pronunciation, 'Leever'.
Prats the lot of 'em.
JB

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 05:46 AM

From "dictionary.com" it seems this use of the word has already been dictionarised! Nigel


"lev·er·age    ( P ) Pronunciation Key (lvr-j, lvr-)
n.

The action of a lever.
The mechanical advantage of a lever.
Positional advantage; power to act effectively: "started his... career with far more social leverage than his father had enjoyed" (Doris Kearns Goodwin).
The use of credit or borrowed funds to improve one's speculative capacity and increase the rate of return from an investment, as in buying securities on margin.

tr.v. lev·er·aged, lev·er·ag·ing, lev·er·ag·es

To provide (a company) with leverage.
To supplement (money, for example) with leverage.
To improve or enhance: "It makes more sense to be able to leverage what we [public radio stations] do in a more effective way to our listeners" (Delano Lewis). "

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Sooz(at work)
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 06:05 AM

What about the nounification of adjectives and/or adverbs? "Mobile" is my pet hate - in more ways than one come to think of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 07:48 AM

Ebbie

Call me a pedant but medically what you describe is vasechtomy because it is the vas defferens that are cut. Vas is a vessel (as in tube) and can be described as a duct.

The best way to describe it is PAINFULL.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 08:53 AM

Well, Sooz, I think "mobile" and it's younger brother "stabile" are examples of specialized fields coming up with terms to talk about things not found in the commons -- in this case art forms, but the principle occurs in every trade. "Modem" and "register" are prime examples. Maybe we should opportunize the situation and invent specialized terms for folkies so we too could exclusivize our peers, thus leveraging our status. A way of making the pie higher.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 10:54 AM

Dear Nigel/Sooz/Amos,

Excuse me while I scream.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!

Johnny

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 11:31 AM

Well, I'd say there is something in common between a mother and a father when it comes to what they do to their children, and I can't think of another word than "parenting" that would cover it.

The two requirements for a new word is that it should be necessary/useful, and that it should sound right. The latter part is where most of those words ending up "ize" fall down. Often enough - bu no means always - they are meeting a need for a word, but they just do it so badly. Which means the vacancy is still open.

But very often, if you hunt around, the word you need is there all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Sooz
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 01:04 PM

I don't have a problem with "parenting" either. In these days when not every family has two, its good not to offend the one which remains. Also not to make a division between "mothering" and "fathering" is helpful. I ramble so I'll stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 01:20 PM

Thread creep-
Hyster- goes back to the old Greek word for womb. Hysyeralgia, a pain in the womb, goes back (the word, that is) to the 17th century. Women may suffer from hysteric passion. Hysterectomies began in the 1880s. Tomlinson wrote (1657) that the plague is a poyson retained in hysterical women. Crooke, in 1615, wrote- "Hysterical women, that is, such as are in fits of the mother."
Lots of interesting stuff in the OED! What? Would you dispute these conclusions by men of science?

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 01:37 PM

LOL, Q! I'm sticking to my uterical!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:01 PM

Of course that's a combination of a Latin word and a greek word. Using "uterus" as the word for womb I think it really should be "uterosection", or "uteroextraction".

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: beadie
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:48 PM

Mr. Red:

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:48 PM

Uterotomy, performed with a uterotome as the utible instrument. Ha! new word for me.
From now on I will use utible for usable. Or utilious? Even better. Love that OED!

I have heard the phrase "to dollar it to death." Somehow translating this into the British monetary equivalent doesn't quite work.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,herc
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:51 PM

daylia, I'm sorry you got metered yesterday.
dan

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: beadie
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:53 PM

Mr. Red:

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: beadie
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:58 PM

I have no idea why this thing won't let me post any more than the opening of my last two attempts.

I have been trying to say that (from first hand experience) a vasectomy doesn't hurt any more than having your teeth cleaned. If you had one done and felt more than minor discomfort, SUE.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 03:04 PM

LOL @ "Q"

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Beccy
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 03:14 PM

Call me Nero Wolfe if you must, but the oddities of language that irritate me are:

Futurecast (duh)
Newscast (ergh)
Stormcast (puhleeeeeeze)


Why does everything have to be made flashy or cute? Butchering of the language does not equal originality. I blame advertising. I'd like to share a little bit of what makes it onto our airwaves and print media around here. I will use their punctuation and spelling.

"Eatin' good. In the neighborhood." Applebee's
"Take pictures. Further." Kodak
"Once you pop, the fun don't stop." Pringles


I could continue, but I won't. I think the most distressing development is the tendency to use guillotine sentences in print advertising. They really should know better than to make a string of sentences that consist entirely of adjectives.

I'm done for now.

Beccy


Beccy

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 04:42 PM

Part of the problem stems from the incompatible uses of language. Those seeking to communicate appreciate the subtleties that using language well provides, and they like them because ti makes greater communication possible. Greater communication is based on greater discrimination between similarities, which asymptotically approaches the communication of truth as understanding increases.

Others wish to use the same tool for the purpose of control and "operating" people's minds for them, not communicating. To this group, any association of syllables that will produce a desired behaviour, willing or not, understanding or not, is endowed with legitimacy because it seems to forward their shabby purposes. They have no concern for understanding, only for reaction induced. George Bush and advertisers are birds of this feather. People who slang up the language in a sloppy way often do so because they are trying to impress and NOT trying to communicate -- so they paint bizarre "scenarios" and use word like "leveraging" and "branding" and "bottom-line" to make themselves sound smart, tight, hip and effective, when what they are really doing is simply advertising their egos. Been there. Got the tee shirt!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 04:49 PM

Language rules never apply in advertising, though. The goal is to use the least words possible to convey all of the benefits one might experience through whatever product is being touted, i.e. not buy this chair because it reclines and has a cushy seat and a bunch of other features...SINK into this chair and FEEL the softness as you drift off to a hot dream filled with nubile nymphettes or hunks, etc.

And, of course to say this chair is entirely wrong unless one has it to hand.

Advertising will always be short bits of the language because they are driven by space restrictions and cost.

I'll never forget my old blessed Latin and English teacher, Mrs. Worcester. She was always pointing out shoddy adverts to us, the most famous of which was "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should!"

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 04:51 PM

Forgot one other word I hear all of the time, but I don't thnk it's been mentioned, yet: outsourcing! HATE it!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:40 PM

I don't like 'crispy'. Why won't 'crisp' do?

Or: It was so fun! Or even: It was funner today.

I suspect that my great grandchildren (should that day arrive) and I will not be able to communicate.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 11:14 PM

Looks like Mrs. Worcester must've been channeling. Of course I meant the offending advert said "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!

G'night, Mrs. W.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 08:46 AM

McGrath can't think of an alternative to "parenting". Well, my parents brought me up, I don't recall any parenting in those days. And male and female parents are equally capable(linguistically at least) of bringing kids up. Or "raising" them, which is, or was, I believe the American term.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 09:10 AM

I parent, thou parentest, he/she parents, we parent, you parent, they parent --- nawww, it really doesn't fly as a verb. As a noun describing the activities of a parent, maybe. What's wrong with fathering and mothering, two verbs which have, at least, a little time under their belts? (And which were probably considered outrageous misuse of language when they started verbing around).

"What's this younger generation coming to" has been a popular indoor sport for two thousand years -- the earliest sample I have seen came from ancient Rome. By and large, I'd say, it is mostly Chicken Little eating sour grapes.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 10:25 AM

Amos, you're on a real early 20th C. roll these days! "Mothering" and "fathering?" With all of the different types of families we have these days? What of the lesbian couple who raise chidren together? Do we have to assign them such traditional titles? I don't think so. I suppose one could say they "mother" a child or "father" but to me it just sounds too trad.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 12:20 PM

Well, I reckon they could take turns, mothering and fathering. Depends on which side of the divide you're promoting at the time. But, ya know, it's a good point, Kat. Maybe there is a Unisex verb in there, and if parenting is the best we can come up with, so be it, but I think I'd rather stick to "nurturing" or "larnin'" or "whuppin' up alongside the haid" depending on the kind of parenting being done.
Hate to lose all them refined meanings in one portmanteau -- it gets to be like a gal's handbag -- can't find anything even if you know its in there somewhere! :>) (ducks and runs off stage left, pursued by a stereotype,....).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 12:23 PM

Well..better an empty handbag than scrotum, eh?


also running and ducking for cover

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 12:29 PM

Yeah -- but speaking of scrota, one thing I've learned about them is you always know what's in them, and where to find it....although gettingit out can be tricky.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: *daylia*
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 12:57 PM

Well I kinda like the word 'parenting'. It highlights the fact that being a parent/homemaker is a full-time and most strenuous activity, even if it doesn't result in a paycheck. As a (mostly) single parent of three, I used to find it so humiliating when people would ask "And do you work too?"

I've known so many people who produced offspring, but never developed the slightest interest in or ability to 'parent'.

I'm quite relieved that time has allowed me to shelve any residual resentments!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 03:02 PM

I would think that raising a human being would be honored as the most meaningful and often difficult and tricky work that can be done. Offices and machines and documents are a piece of cake compared to a two-year-old!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 06:03 PM

True enough Greg, but you can be brought up by lots of other people who aren't your parents. Nurture is another word meaning the same thing, and a better one, I'd say.

But I can't actually see anyway in which a frozen metaphor like "brought up" - which after all sounds like what you do when you've eaten something unpleasant - is a better way of saying it than "parent". Language changes, and sometime the changes aren't for the worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 09:58 PM

Looking up meanings on ballad, the verb, to ballad (to write ballads), goes back to the 16th century. There is nothing in the English language that says a noun must stay a noun or a verb a verb. The dictionary is full of these shifts in usage.
Parent in verb form has been in use in North America for about 50 years in print.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: GUEST,Sooz(away from home)
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 02:52 AM

I've just heard a new one (at least to me) on the BBC breakfast news. Roger Black was speculating wheter or not Colin Jackson would "medal" in the indoor athletics. Ouch!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 05:49 AM

McGrath, I think I'm inclined to agree with you, "parenting" is more specific than "bringing up". But I'm not completely convinced. You're saying many people can be involved in "bringing up"(OK it does mean vomiting, but lots of things have two meanings, one of them unfortunate): but only one or two can be parents. I think there might be a grey area here. What happens if mum and dad day(or mum and mum in the lesbian case), and Auntie Edna takes the kids on. Is she then "parenting", or only bringing up or raising? And would this change if she formally adopted them? Anyway, I just find "parenting" unaesthetic, and I don't use. Especially in the context of "parenting skills". For much the same reason I'm happy to show a kid how to juggle but I dont run circus skills workshops. But I digress.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 09:20 AM

Perhaps they were worried the particpant was going to "meddle" with the event? I can't believe anyone would try to verb "medal". ;>)

So, what, you go through your life ribboning and medaling and prizing and certificating and diploming, and what does it get you? A second rate piece of ideational equipment, is what!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Sooz
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 11:34 AM

And another one - a colleague said to me "I've been tasked to pick something up on my way to the station". Double ouch for two new ones in one day!

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 11:42 AM

To task and be tasked is pretty standardized jargon in the US Navy and Army circles. The slang for it is getting a "tasker". I don't know when this crept into usage -- they use the word task for any sort of assignment -- but at least they're cleaving to the Anglo-Saxon!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 01:07 PM

Does anyone else cringe at the use of 'grow' the economy? Maybe I just never noticed it before. We don't say 'grow the garden', why do we want to grow the economy? I suppose it's not a new phrase but it seems I hear it all the time now.

Subject: RE: BS: Nouns as Verbs: 'to summit Everest'
From: clueless don
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 04:49 PM

Susanl (posting 09 Mar 03 - 04:36 AM), you decried "apostrophes being used for plural when they only belong to the possessive (e.g. CD's for sale)." I mostly agree with you, but might there be exceptions? For example, suppose you had a word in which the lower-case letter "a" occurred five times. Which would be correct

There are five as in the word

There are five a's in the word

[And, no - for the purpose of this example, you are not allowed to change the construction and say "The letter 'a' occurs five times in the word."]