[Ads-l] backseat drive
Brian Hitchcock
brianhi at SKECHERS.COM
Mon Jun 1 18:20:47 UTC 2015
This is simply another example of the verbing of modified nouns (specifically fixed forms/compounds):
Executive Producer --> to executive produce
Project Management --> Project Manager --> to project manage
Video Conference --> to video-conference
(I'm not fond of these. But I'm sure you could add more--the above are just what came to my mind immediately.)
This phenomenon also occurs with modified verbs:
baby sitting, baby-sitting, babysitting, to babysit
second guess, second-guess, second-guessing, to second-guess
window shop, window-shopping, to window-shop
So we could say such verbings are an inevitable side-effect of compounding. Perhaps these days the intermediate steps are omitted, and we go straight from open compound to verb.
Unfortunately, we also see it in the misuse of compound nouns formed from phrasal verbs, AS IF they were verbs.
log in, log-in, login, to login (sic)
shut down, shut-down, shutdown, to shutdown (sic)
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