# Anthimeria



## bdcharles (Nov 1, 2018)

Otherwise knows as "Using words in the wrong place for effect", have you ever tried this? What I mean is taking a known word and using it in its typical context but in a slightly different place in the sentence. Let me give some examples:

"Can you *action *that?" - every business meeting since about 1998
"My sea-gown *scarf'd* about me." - _Hamlet_, William Shakespeare
"How to *Television*" — Amazon ad slogan
 "I'll get you, my *pretty*"  - The Wizard of Oz

Some words we use daily are ancient victims of Anthimeria. Duke, Lord both started out as verbs. You might consider gerunds as a form of it. I suspect a large portion of language is this: words like _darted_ and _skipped_, may have started life as nouns. There was a guy here who had a signature to the effect of "Sleep in fear - Viking is a verb" which I always remember. Maybe there are some in other languages. But let's try some new ones. Let's try and anthimerialise a sentence in a way we've not seen before, to see what happens to it. This is from _Ready Player One_ by Ernest Cline, published by Arrow Books in 2012, and which happens to be the nearest book to me at the moment.



> A green path appeared on the floor of the arcade, leading from where I stood to the exit.



What about:



> A green path appeared on the floor of the arcade, *carriagewaying* from where I stood to the exit.



Sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses, but it's interesting to see the different sort of feel you can get from one simple change. I've been trying to apply anthimeria to turn the noun "anguish" into a verb in my WIP but the right moment hasn't come along, yet (he anguished).

Here's a funny quote from Calvin and Hobbes on the subject.



> Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when  "access" was a thing? Now it's something you do. It got verbed. Verbing  weirds language.
> Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.


 — Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

What about you? Have you weirded language recently, in a new way?


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## JustRob (Nov 1, 2018)

bdcharles said:


> Duke, Lord both started out as verbs.



But then someone nouned them.


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## TL Murphy (Nov 1, 2018)

It’s fairly common in poetry, usually making a noun into a verb.  The effect is to expand the meaning of the sentence by enhancing the verb in a way that stimulates the imagination visually and opens up possibility of greater interpretation.


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## bdcharles (Nov 2, 2018)

JustRob said:


> But then someone nouned them.



Exactly. I suppose it's been going on forever, ever since the first person went for a "walk". 



TL Murphy said:


> It’s fairly common in poetry, usually making a noun into a verb.  The effect is to expand the meaning of the sentence by enhancing the verb in a way that stimulates the imagination visually and opens up possibility of greater interpretation.



Yes, the more I think about this the more I realise how little I know aboit poetry...


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 2, 2018)

I think I've done it, but the advantages aren't protruding. But I did the assignment; from today: "one of my advices is to consider resonance,"


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## JustRob (Nov 3, 2018)

TL Murphy said:


> It’s fairly common in poetry, usually making a noun into a verb.  The effect is to expand the meaning of the sentence by enhancing the verb in a way that stimulates the imagination visually and opens up possibility of greater interpretation.



Although I doubt that anyone has used "poetry" itself as a verb. Indeed "poem" probably hasn't been used that way either but the earlier word "poesy" has evidently. Apparently it's intransitive though, so one can only poesy in general without poesying anything in particular. In a post a while back I did in passing express wonder about what it was that poets actually do, but now I know. Poets poesy. The conventional transitive verb is "compose" of course, no doubt from the same root. So have you poesied recently?



> So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold, And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme.
> 
> (_Isabella_ by John Keats cited in the OED definition of the word "poesy")


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## Guard Dog (Nov 3, 2018)

bdcharles said:


> What about you? Have you weirded language recently, in a new way?



People around my neck of the woods seem to make a hobby out of curiosing up their language.  

Never knew there was a word or term for it though... other than just "southern" that is.



G.D.


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## JustRob (Nov 4, 2018)

Weirding was something that people did in the novel _Dune_.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 4, 2018)

JustRob said:


> Weirding was something that people did in the novel _Dune_.



Yeah, I'm familiar with the "weirding way". But folk around here don't need a weirding module to do strange things with grammar and such. 

Come to Tennessee some time, and you'll probably feel a lot like Alice: "Curiouser and curiouser..."  :lol:



G.D.


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 4, 2018)

Being 'railroaded' into something springs to mind. Railroad surely started life as a noun. Sticking with transport would a 'total car crash' count? It would be unlikely to involve actual cars. On the same theme, 'I am going to scoot' would not lead anyone to expect him to get his scooter out. So much language is not literal in that way, the arborist I used to work with sometimes who was generally known as 'ice' because of his coolness at heights, at what point does it stop being 'special' and just become another aspect of the language? I suppose it is a bit like spelling, if enough people spell colour color then it isn't a wrong spelling anymore, and if enough people say 'He's a cold fish' nobody expects him to have a temperature under 98.4 or have fins.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 4, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> ...if enough people say 'He's a cold fish' nobody expects him to have a temperature under 98.4 or have fins.



Would I be *blackballed* from the forum due to having a body temperature that runs closer to 97 or so? 
( It really does. Ex-wife says it's 'cause I'm part reptile. )


G.D.


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## JustRob (Nov 5, 2018)

It is interesting trying to determine which came first, the noun or verb. An example that surprised me was "trend". In my young days I only encountered it as a noun but nowadays it is trending as a verb. However, on checking in the OED its use as a verb dates from the sixteenth century and apparently predates its use as a noun. Trending isn't so trendy as I thought then.

Just an afterthought:

Is texting fake news for some devious reason pretexting? Indeed, pretexting is evidently trending. In fact, having just looked up the verbal form, it means _acquiring_ information rather than providing it deviously.

And another:

The ambiguities caused by the same words being used for different purposes are rife. The classic example is "Time flies like an arrow," where its interpretation is highly subjective because there are three possible verbs. Should we really be aggravating the situation?


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 5, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Would I be *blackballed* from the forum due to having a body temperature that runs closer to 97 or so?
> ( It really does. Ex-wife says it's 'cause I'm part reptile. )
> 
> 
> G.D.



I reckon it's not that uncommon, it's something you share with my missus. She also has an abnormally low platelet count, things she shares with her mother and sister. New doctors get quite excited when they do 'routine testing'.

Sorry, getting 'off the tracks', 'centre' yourself and 'stick' to the subject, Olly.


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## JustRob (Nov 5, 2018)

Ah, I think I've found a noun that genuinely became a verb later. It's "chair". Maybe that's because it refers to something physical. My previous example "trend" was something abstract and started out as a verb. Is there a pattern here? "Love" is an interesting one, being such an ancient concept and definitely abstract. So did it start out as a noun or verb?

P.S.

If love is blind then did "blind" start out as an adjective? Apparently yes, used as such in Saxon documents from as far back as the year 1000 and derived from an earlier German adjective. Use as a verb has been found from around 1400 onwards. The OED is a mine of such information.

This is an interesting game and it seems unlikely that anyone will use a word in a way that hasn't been done before.


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 5, 2018)

> "Love" is an interesting one, being such an ancient concept and definitely abstract.



I thought it could be quite physical at times


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## JustRob (Nov 5, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> I thought it could be quite physical at times



A gentleman never tells though, so I couldn't possibly comment on that.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 5, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> Being 'railroaded' into something springs to mind. Railroad surely started life as a noun. Sticking with transport would a 'total car crash' count? It would be unlikely to involve actual cars. On the same theme, 'I am going to scoot' would not lead anyone to expect him to get his scooter out. So much language is not literal in that way, the arborist I used to work with sometimes who was generally known as 'ice' because of his coolness at heights, at what point does it stop being 'special' and just become another aspect of the language? I suppose it is a bit like spelling, if enough people spell colour color then it isn't a wrong spelling anymore, and if enough people say 'He's a cold fish' nobody expects him to have a temperature under 98.4 or have fins.



It's a general phenomenon and important for the issue of metaphor. But acronyms/abbreviations are a great example. Someone no doubt got tired of writing out deoxyribonucleic acid, so they abbreviated it as DNA and explained the abbreviation. Nowadays I suspect you would have trouble finding people who know what DNA stands for -- DNA has become a word. I suspect people are slightly more familiar with FBI than Federal Bureau of Investigation, almost no one knows radar, and no one knows for sure where OK came from.

So, abbreviations/acronyms, metaphoricals, phrases, and foreign words can -- with frequent use -- all make a slow trip from their original meaning to stand-alone words. Some are farther on that trip than others.

Boycott started life as a proper noun. You have to be a word geek to know the original meaning.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 5, 2018)

So... these days, if you say you've "Trumped someone"... does it mean you've gained the upper hand...

...or that you've talked shit about 'em on social media?  8-[


G.D.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 5, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> So... these days, if you say you've "Trumped someone"... does it mean you've gained the upper hand...
> 
> ...or that you've talked shit about 'em on social media?  8-[
> 
> ...



I'm not sure if you expected a serious answer. For a figurative expression to work, there has to be some cue that it's figurative. Um, I say that, I don't know if anyone else does. So (to on-topic this answer a little) you can't use a noun as a verb if the reader might read it as a noun. 

This turns out to be a big topic. You can't use sarcasm in writing, or it's really difficult, because the verbal cues are missing. "I was cut by your comment". Cut is what I call a lexaphor, a type of metaphor. It's signaled by the fact that a comment doesn't make a literal cut.

So you can't use Trump as a lexaphor there because the common meaning works. You could say "He did a Trump" and then we have the cue that the original meaning doesn't work. You can talk about Trumpian tweets.

(And I just noticed, as you probably did, that caps will usually give the show away for your particular example. I meant a general answer.)


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## Guard Dog (Nov 5, 2018)

EmmaSohan said:


> (And I just noticed, as you probably did, that caps will usually give the show away for your particular example. I meant a general answer.)



I did notice. However, too many people these days abandon any pretense at capitalization, punctuation, or even proper spelling.

Also, you can't hear a capitol letter when a person speaks. So I'm wondering how quickly "evolution" will act, and "Trump" takes on a whole new meaning. ( If it hasn't already, in many people's minds. )



G.D.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 5, 2018)

JustRob said:


> Ah, I think I've found a noun that genuinely became a verb later. It's "chair".



How 'bout we *table* that one for later? :eagerness:


G.D.


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## Jack of all trades (Nov 5, 2018)

Oh! The irony!!



Guard Dog said:


> I did notice. However, *too many people these days abandon any pretense at capitalization, punctuation, or even proper spelling*.
> 
> Also, you can't hear a *capitol letter* when a person speaks.
> 
> ...





> Capitol | Definition of Capitol by Merriam-Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/.../ ... Oct 21, 2018 ...
> Capitol definition is - a building in which a state legislative body meets. How to use capitol in a ...




LOL


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## Underd0g (Nov 5, 2018)

JustRob said:


> It is interesting trying to determine which came first, the noun or verb. An example that surprised me was "trend". In my young days I only encountered it as a noun but nowadays it is trending as a verb. However, on checking in the OED its use as a verb dates from the sixteenth century and apparently predates its use as a noun. Trending isn't so trendy as I thought then.



Actually, I don't think "trend" is a verb unless you add the "ing". If this is the case then I think you can turn anything into a verb.
"I was kitchening the other day" which is to say I was doing something in the kitchen.


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 5, 2018)

'Make anything a verb' and I thought 'I was JustRobbing the other day, meaning ...'


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## JustRob (Nov 6, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> 'Make anything a verb' and I thought 'I was JustRobbing the other day, meaning ...'



Olly had to break off there because I know where he lives and it's only a short drive away. I might send my angel to sort out his garden, although she says that it would be more of a threat if I were to sort out his garden. So, "sort", noun or verb first?


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 6, 2018)

Ah, which sort ? Still I must sort one thing, nothing unpleasant intended, old sort. I would sort of like it if you did come over, it certainly wouldn't leave me out of sorts.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 6, 2018)

Given that "sort" has origins in _old English_, _old French_, and _old Latin_ ( Isn't all Latin _old_? )... I certainly can't sort it out.


G.D.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Nov 10, 2018)

Saw an example of this on an elementary school wall. . .the students had all written different things they did to help their families ("I can rake leaves", "I can sweep", etc.) and someone had written "I can mom in the kitchen." I thought that was cute. (I suppose the definition of "momming" probably depends on who your mom is though)


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