This is my inventory, up to today, of these things. Some of them are of fair age, some quite recent. Originally, I tried to distinguish “established” from “innovative” examples, but the distinction eventually seemed to me to be indefensible.
The inventory is amended every few days, and it doesn’t begin to pretend to be exhaustive. Think of it merely as a survey of the kinds of phenomena that are out there.
Items are listed by the verb serving as second element. (The punctuation varies: some are listed solid, some hyphenated, some separated. These differences mean absolutely nothing.)
The inventory:
ASSOCIATE: free-associate
BARGAIN: plea-bargain
BEAR: child-bear
BIND: spellbind
BOIL: hard-boil, potboil
BREAK: housebreak
BUILD: jerry-build
BURN: sunburn
BUY: store-buy
CHECK: factcheck, name-check
CLEAN: houseclean, dry-clean, spring-clean
COAST: roller-coast
CONDITION: air-condition
CONQUER: all-conquer
CONTROL: quality-control
CROP: sharecrop
CUT: cost-cut
DANCE: breakdance
DIVE: muffdive, scuba dive
DREAM: daydream
DRILL: offshore drill
DRINK: underage drink
DROP: name-drop
EDIT: copyedit
ENHANCE: performance advance
FLAP: arm-flap
FORM: back-form
FUCK: finger-fuck
GAZE: navelgaze
HANDLE: panhandle
HOLD: grudge-hold
HUNT: headhunt, househunt, job-hunt
JUMP: line-jump
KEEP: book-keep, housekeep, timekeep
KILL: serial-kill
KISS: buttkiss
LAND: soft-land
LASH: tongue-lash
LEAD: cheerlead
LIGHT: moonlight
MAKE: matchmake, custom-make
MANAGE: stage-manage
MARRY: gay marry
MATCH: price-match
MIND: child-mind
PICK: cherrypick, nitpick
PORT: teleport
PRODUCE: executive produce
PROMPT: teleprompt
QUARTER: headquarter
READ: lipread, proofread, mindread, silent-read
REAR: child-rear
REFER: cross-refer
ROLL: logroll, steamroll
RUN: showrun
SEARCH: Google-search, web-search
SEE: sightsee
SHARE: emotion-share
SHOOT: troubleshoot
SHOP: doctor-shop, X-shop in general
SIT: babysit, fence-sit
SOLVE: problem-solve
SPEND: secret-spend
STAB: backstab
SURF: windsurf, bodysurf
TAKE: caretake
TAP: wiretap
TEACH: substitute teach
TEND: bartend
TRANSFER: high speed transfer
TROT: globetrot
TUNE: fine-tune
VOTE: early vote, absentee vote, advance vote
WALK: sleepwalk, tightrope-walk
WASH: brainwash
WATCH: people-watch
WORK: buddy work
WRITE: hand-write, typewrite
June 9, 2009 at 12:19 am |
One that doesn’t quite fit the form but keeps company in spirit, due to the verb coming first: “to drag-ass.” I’ve noticed this quite a bit over the last couple of years, mainly in the present progressive or the imperfect (“I was drag-assing all day today”).
I’m not sure I can think of any other verb-first back formations like this one.
June 9, 2009 at 11:03 am |
Some more that occurred to me, in no particular order, all attested as verb phrases by Google searches: to time waste, to time manage, to lion tame, to horse ride, to horse race, to fox hunt, to snake charm, to sex offend, to drug traffic, to ball tamper, to arse lick, to shit stir, to shape shift, to happy slap, to arm wrestle, to lane hog, to clock watch, to hill climb, to fell walk, to cliff hang, to draft dodge, to house sit, to grave rob, to penny pinch, …
I am only supposing that these are all back-formed but it seems a reasonable supposition. I guess most of them must have begun with people Xing Y in a practice that became Y-Xing, leading to a back-formed two-part verb phrase Y X. Is there a theory about how and when this does or doesn’t happen?
June 9, 2009 at 1:19 pm |
To Ian Preston: I was hoping not to get saddled with making an inventory of all the back-formations of this sort that have been made, but I suppose it’s irresistible for people to offer me more examples. So now I have some work to do.
June 9, 2009 at 2:03 pm |
Yes, it is irresistible and too easy too. I find that if you just think of established terms of the form X-Ying or X-Yer then as often as not you can get an example out of it: strap hang, loss adjust, rock climb, … Perhaps it is more informative to find the examples that don’t work and ask why. Why is it that “nail clipper” or “goal scorer”, say, don’t seem to yield back-formed verb phrases when “hair dryer” and “goal keeper” do?
June 9, 2009 at 5:30 pm |
[…] Arnold Zwicky’s Blog Just another WordPress.com weblog « Today’s two-part back-formed verb inventory […]
June 11, 2009 at 1:34 pm |
There’s no need to handwring about keeping the inventory uptodate.
June 13, 2009 at 4:45 pm |
[…] http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/todays-two-part-back-formed-verb-inventory/ […]
July 5, 2009 at 3:05 pm |
[…] Gay Marriage” a while back (NYT, 6/13/09) made me think some more about 2-p b-f verbs (two-part back-formed verbs), and in particular the possible 2-p b-f verbs to church marry and to civil […]