"weird" as a verb

[Drew Danielson]

another issue altogether -

this sounds like refined application of 'out+[a 'quantifiable'
action]'.  'Weird' is only operative as far as it gives specificity to
the action that 'out' modifies.

Cf. "He can out-eat me" and "He can eat me".  The prefix 'out-' (or
'out') confers the sense of 'doing more' of root verb in reference to
the object.  Nothing (and no one) is being eaten in the first sentence.
Just as nothing is being 'weirded' in the example below.



"Baker, John" wrote:
>
>         I don't have the exact wording in front of me and the quotes of this on the web apparently are all done from memory, but Douglas Adams used "out-weird" as a verb in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" (1980):  "Listen, three-eyes, don't try to out-weird me.  I get stranger things than you free in my breakfast cereal."
>
> John Baker

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