foment

[Tom Vincent]

Is there a 'tipping point' concept among linguists to determine when using a verb as a noun or adjective becomes an acceptable usage, recognized variant or whatnot?

  Tom

Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Jonathan Lighter
Subject: foment
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Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. ambassador to Morrocco, observed a few minutes ago (on _Fox & Friends_, natch), that there's "a lot of foment in the Muslim world." He then said most Americans are unaware of just how much "foment" there is, so it wasn't just a slip of the tongue.

The Net reveals a few dozen independent exx.

JL


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Tom Vincent

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"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - Franklin Roosevelt

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org