verbing the noun

[Laurence Horn]

As an instance of verbing a noun (in the manner of "podiuming" as
discussed in Ben's column in today's On Language
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/magazine/07FOB-onlanguage-t.html)
rather than of "verbing the noun" as in Randy's post, there's a photo
in the Times Travel Section for a piece on the great cuisine of
Houston that depicts, according to the caption, "Bryan Caswell,
co-owner of Reef, plating ambjerjack, a white-fleshed fish, with long
beans, plantains, and a pomegranate jus."  Of course totally
interpretable in context, but (unlike batters who "plate", i.e. drive
in, runs in a baseball game) this one is new to me.  I see both the
culinary and baseball senses are in the OED (the former, though,
usually as "plate(d) up"), along with a somewhat less transparent and
non-obviously denominal sense glosses as 'to practise fellatio or
cunnilingus on'.  Fortunately, I imagine the context (even in the
absence of newspaper photos accompanying captions) will generally
make it clear which of these rather different senses is involved.

LH

At 5:35 PM +0800 2/7/10, Randy Alexander wrote:
>Apparently this is now becoming a euphemism for choking the
>purple-helmeted warrior of love, and countless other euphemisms that
>are euphemisms of each other, following the pattern VERBing the NOUN.
>
>===
>
>If it's as much of an endless stream of guys verbing the noun as is
>claimed, it might be a neat CBT tool for inducing social anxiety.
>
>http://www.metafilter.com/88978/Is-ChatRoulette-the-future-of-the-Internet-or-its-distant-past#2938686
>
>===
>
>More here:
>
>http://www.metafilter.com/85575/Verbing-the-Noun-if-you-know-what-I-mean-nudge-nudge-wink-wink
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Jilin City, China
>Blogs:
>Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
>Chinese characters: http://www.sinoglot.com/yuwen
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org