Queen Mary = wire-rack rolling cart; names of TV shows or characters, used as verbs

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:38 PM -0500 11/30/08, Marc Velasco wrote:
>if anyone's still tracking this...
>tonight on the simpsons, someone (moe?) told homer to _jack bauer_ someone,
>ie, to interrogate/torture for information.

Speaking of the verbal MacGyver, here's one in print from today's NYT
Book Review:

The father, a dentist who has quit his practice in Fairbanks,
imagines himself as a high-north survivalist. He is, in fact,
woefully unprepared. He does not know the name of the nearest
inhabited island or how to build a cache for winter food or how to
repair the cabin's damaged roof or how to keep the bears away. (Not
everyone who lives in places like Alaska is born knowing how to
MacGyver a water filter out of bark.)

[review by Tom Bissell of David Vann's book, _Legend of a Suicide_]

LH

>
>>  >
>>  > A sentence one of my fellow bartenders uttered last night while we
>>  > were breaking down the bars, and packing up all the stuff to take back
>>  > to the MIT Faculty club where it goes:
>>  >
>>  > "I think I can MacGyver the rest of the liquor onto the Queen Mary."
>>  >
>>  > A "Queen Mary", by the way, is a big wire-rack rolling cart. Imagine a
>>  > set of aluminum-tube-and wire-rack shelves, and put wheels on it.
>>  > That's all it is, and you stack everything on it, and then wrap it all
>>  > in pallet wrap, which is just somewhat-thicker clingfilm/Saran wrap,
>>  > which keeps everything from falling off.
>>  >
>>  > But are there other television shows or television characters which
>>  > have become verbs?
>>  >
>>  > -----
>>
>>  >
>>
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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