[Ads-l] nouning of adjectives again

[James A. Landau]

On Tue, 17 May 2016 10:03:09 Zone-0400  Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

<quote>That would seem to fit OED3's sense 28e for "do": "With adjective as
notional object: to (be able to) exhibit the behaviour described. Freq. 
in negative constructions." Earliest cite given is from 1991 on Usenet: "I
don't do polite." But it resembles an earlier use of "do" listed in OED3
(sense 18b) with cites from Dickens and other 19th-century writers: "do 
the [adjective]" (e.g., "amiable," "civil," "grand," "lazy," "polite"),
elliptical for "do the [adjective] thing."
<end quote>

Another usage of "do": for some time now Atlantic City, New Jersey, has been using the advertising slogan/graphic

DO
--
AC

It is not clear to me what the exact meaning of "DO" is here, although the intent of the graphic seems obvious.

see, e.g., http://www.atlanticcitynj.com/

- James A. Landau

PS: the prescriptivist in me (gee, Netscape flags "prescriptivist" as a spelling error) can't help but notice Dave Wilton's definition of "ambush":  "attack by laying in wait"
 



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