[Ads-l] backseat drive

[Jonathan Lighter]

CNN: "They can fund-raise off each other."

Along with the nominalization of adjectives, this pattern is here to stay
and more productive all the time.

JL

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 2:20 PM, Brian Hitchcock <brianhi at skechers.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Brian Hitchcock <brianhi at SKECHERS.COM>
> Subject:      backseat drive
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is simply another example of the verbing of modified nouns
> (specifical=
> ly fixed forms/compounds):
>         Executive Producer --> to executive produce
>         Project Management --> Project Manager --> to project manage
>         Video Conference --> to video-conference
> (I'm not fond of these. But I'm sure you could add more--the above are
> just=
>  what came to my mind immediately.)=20
>
> This phenomenon also occurs with modified verbs:
>         baby sitting, baby-sitting, babysitting, to babysit
>         second guess, second-guess, second-guessing, to second-guess=20
>         window shop, window-shopping, to window-shop
> So we could say such verbings are an inevitable side-effect of
> compounding.=
>  Perhaps these days the intermediate steps are omitted, and we go straight
> =
> from open compound to verb.
>
> Unfortunately, we also see it in the misuse of compound nouns formed from
> p=
> hrasal verbs, AS IF they were verbs.
>         log in, log-in, login, to login (sic)
>         shut down, shut-down, shutdown, to shutdown (sic)
>         =09
>         =09
>         =09
>         =09
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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