to early/absentee vote

[Mark Mandel]

I call them "back-forms".

Mark Mandel


On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at csli.stanford.edu>wrote:

>  From Language Log reader Drew Ward to me a few days ago:
>
>  This month I have been hearing formations such as "John early voted
> today." (local news) or "Many more people this year have decided to
> early vote." (CNN)
>
> Today I also heard this trend being applied to absentee voting with a
> local news station following up a story on early voting with "You can
> also absentee vote this week."  Whereas in the past I know I've always
> heard "vote absentee" or "vote by absentee ballot".
> .....
>
> lots of google hits for "to early vote" and "early voted", a few for
> "to absentee vote" and "absentee voted".
>
> Thousands line up to early vote. Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on
> October 17, 2008
> projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/thousands_line_up_to_early_vote
>
> Some people in Clayton County are standing in line for four hours just
> to early-vote."
> www.mcclatchydc.com/254/story/54982.html
>
> Oct 28, 2008 ... We early voted friday.. whew… I was relieved.. and
> felt proud as well for my vote choice…
> newscoma.com/2008/10/28/early-voted/
>
> I Early Voted for Barack Today! by Arkieboy. Mon Oct 27, 2008 at
> 01:11:38 PM PDT . My wife kicked me out of the house today. Told me to
> go hang out in the ...
> www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/27/154842/05
>
> Sep 25, 2008 ... "This will be my third year to absentee vote,"
> Gnidovec said.
> www.dailyvidette.com/news/2008/09/25/News/
> Absentee.Voting.Eases.Process .For.Students-3450749.shtml
>
> How to absentee vote in Louisiana. Posted Sep 7th 2007 10:00AM by Mike
> Schleifstein
> www.bloggingneworleans.com/2007/09/07/how-to-absentee-vote-in-
> louisiana/<http://www.bloggingneworleans.com/2007/09/07/how-to-absentee-vote-in-louisiana/>
>
> Nov 1, 2008 ... If you have absentee voted already stop in and say hi.
>
> www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4350333
>
> Oct 29, 2008 ... Have you either early voted or absentee voted in the
> 2008 Election? Yes. No. Other (Tell us below!)
>
> www.wowowow.com/poll/have-you-either-early-voted-or-absentee-voted-2008-election-131063
> .....
>
> these formations look to me not like an unusual placement of the
> modifiers "early" and "absentee", but rather like back-formations from
> "early/absentee voting/voter".  the result seems to function as a
> lexical unit (note the hyphenated "early-vote" example).
>
> for "early vote", there's a clear advantage to having such a unit,
> since "vote early" could refer to voting early on election day, while
> "early vote" refers specifically to institutionalized procedures for
> voting before election day.
>
> (i posted on Language Log a little while ago about a somewhat
> different back-formation:
>
>   AZ, 8/22/08: To gay marry:
>  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=519
>
> with the verb back-formed from "gay marriage".)
>
> arnold
>
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