"weird" as a verb

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:52 AM -0400 9/3/02, Drew Danielson wrote:
>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.
>
>
Right.  This is again the prefix that forms a transitive verb out of
an INtransitive verb (here, "eat" is intransitive) or an adjective.
Or out of a noun (I thought I was a world-class bachelor/idiot/...,
but you easily out-bachelor/out-idiot/... me).

larry