Verbing

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 05:46 PM 6/29/99 -0700, Andrea Vine wrote:
>Verbing - it's rampant! [...] One of the more sales-oriented honchos talked
>about "goaling" the managers.  He meant that certain things would be part of
>their goals, which are documented and used as a sort of task list.
>
>Maybe it comes from marketing copy, where every word costs and space is
>limited.
>
>I'll calendar this for later...
>

Whatever one thinks of it from the angle of mainstream formal English,
doesn't this process also allow the speaker to claim, by implication or
connotation, status as innovative, colloquial, punchy, concise, uncowed by
formalities, active (action words, not thing words), etc. Not to mention the
speaker's implicit claim to be a member of an in-group with a special lingo
-- an in-group to which the hearer may aspire to belong by adopting the
lingo. Etc. etc....

Is the most famous example of this "to access"? I suppose there must be
examples that are still more successful at replicating themsleves.


Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu