'Bow' = "introduce"?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Damien Hall <djh514 at york.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Noted in this article from _Home Media Magazine_, 9 July 2009:
>
> 'Animax Bows Foreign-Language iPhone App for Toddlers'
>
> http://tinyurl.com/bow-introduce
>
> I'm assuming this is a verbalisation of _bow_ /baU/, on the basis of _take
> a bow_ 'enter the scene' - I've heard it before, though, and it's not in
> OED or MW online. Has anyone else heard it?

It's Variety-speak:

---
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=slanguage
bow -- (n.) opening or premiere; (v.) to debut a production; "The
pic's bow was in January"; "The Nederlander Organization will bow its
revival of 'Wonderful Town' next year."
---

The transitivization of "bow" is reminiscent of Variety-style "ankle",
which I discussed here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004210.html


--Ben Zimmer

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