Backformed "verse"

[Charles C Doyle]

A tiny note/query in _American Speech_ in 1981 (56:277) brought up the subject.  I'll quote it in its entirety (I am the author):

<<  From more than one speaker recently I have hard /v at rs/ used to mean 'oppose in a contest', as in "The Braves versed the Dodgers last night."  Presumably the verb derives from the prepositon _versus_.  Is it new?  Is it widespread?  Would it be spelled _vers_ or _verse_?  >>

Charlie



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Ben Zimmer [bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 2:26 AM-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 12:56 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 7:37 AM, Neal Whitman wrote:
> >
> > Seems to me this topic has come up here before, but I don't see it in
> > the archives. It's the backformation "verse" from "versus". Mignon Fogarty
> > (Grammar Girl) has gathered some (self-selecting) speaker data and generated
> > a map to go with this week's podcast, like she did with "needs done". She
> > includes a Linguist List email from Ben, with a 1995 attestation, and a
> > ~1980 recollection of the word:
> > http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/why-do-kids-say-versing.aspx
> >
> > Here's one of the blog posts I did on the subject:
> > http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2005/06/07/verses-vs-versus/
>
> and check out the eggcorn database entry:
>
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/463/verses/
>
> especially note the comments there; the earliest attestation at that point
> was from 1984.

Ah, I'd forgotten I'd posted that! Noted here as well:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509E&L=ADS-L&P=R2925
New York Times, Feb. 20, 1984, B3/4
"Latest Word: New Yorkese Of '84 Is Here"
To verse: High school slang meaning to compete against another school's
team, as in "We're going to be versing the Brown Bombers next week." From
the preposition "versus."

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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