back-"formate" (was: deigned; lorded; incoming)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/13/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> Google yields a lot of "formate"s, but they seem to be either
> typos/misspellings of "format" (noun or verb) or a noun referring to
> some sort of chemical thingy--or else a zero, not Salisbury's
> back-formed verb meaning essentially 'to use multiple formations'.

Looks like former New York Giants coach Jim Fassel was a fan of
(back-)formating:

-----
http://www.giants.com/news/eisen/story.asp?story_id=231
Monday Morning Notebook, Nov. 18, 2002
"I am concerned right now, a lot, with where we are health-wise,"
Fassel said. ... "Like I said, last week the game planning was very
tricky as far as how we were going to plan, how we were going to
formate things, what the progression was for the quarterback."
-----
http://www.amani.com/reviews2002.html
>From Jim Fassel's Monday News Conference, 11/18/02
Question: Did you think that you would be able to get Toomer and
Shockey that open?
Fassel: Well we based some things on it and we had to formate some
more things...we had to formate them, you just have to formate them.
-----


--Ben Zimmer

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