road-trip, v.

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jun 5, 2007, at 5:18 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:

> One of Fox's beloved _F & F_ anchors suggests that they "could road-
> trip to England and look for the Loch Ness Monster."

this is a very small extension of "road" in "on the road"
'travelling, journeying, upon or during a journey, etc.; on tour' (as
the OED has it), which doesn't require that an actual road be
involved, as in this example:

1977 Daily Express 29 Mar. 20/2 We start touring America in May, move
on to Europe and England by September, and we are taking the 70
musicians on the road.

the anchor could have said "travel" rather than "road-trip", but that
would have been less vivid and would not have conveyed the sense of a
group project.

of course, there's also the nice verbing in "road-trip".

arnold

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