Archive for June, 2009

Newer Entries »

Please stop

June 12, 2009

In my posting on my inventory of two-part back-formed verbs, I tried to say clearly but politely that I was not proposing to create a complete inventory of the things, but only to give a representative sample of them. This has not stopped people from sending me more examples of this very common phenomenon, with the result that I’ve had an hour a day or so consumed by adding these examples. I’m beginning to feel hunted.

(I do welcome more examples of phenomena that I have few sightings of, but 2-p b-f verbs are not such a case.)

Please stop sending me more cases, even if you love them.

If anyone wants to maintain something like a complete inventory, I’m happy to share my files (not just the verb list, but information about sources and the like). And Ben Zimmer notes that you can find a whole pile of examples (I hate to think how many) by doing an advanced search in the OED on “back-formation”.

Posted in Back formation, Morphology | 1 Comment »

Outdated Zippy

June 11, 2009

Zippy and Mr. Toad on outdated formulaic language:

Color me X!

Posted in Formulaic language, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

External, internal, and double inflection

June 10, 2009

Meg Worley commented yesterday on my inventory of two-part back-formed verbs:

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.

I suspect that such examples are of a rather different phenomenon from the cases I’ve been looking at in my recent postings on back formation

(more…)

Posted in Inflection | 5 Comments »

Back-formings

June 9, 2009

My recent posting on two-part back-formed verbs has elicited queries about how and why these verbs arise. The first of these questions is easier to answer than the second, but I’ll take a stab at both.

(more…)

Posted in Back formation, Compounds, Morphology | 6 Comments »

Today’s two-part back-formed verb inventory

June 8, 2009

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

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

Child-rear

June 8, 2009

A little while ago, I added the two-part back-formed verb child-mind to my inventory of these things, and then after I posted on the verb parent and the compound noun child-rearing, it occurred to me to search for a verb child-rear — and, yes, there were a few hits. The world of back-formed verbs is rich and wonderful, and there’s quite a collection of examples in postings to Language Log, to ADS-L, and to Neal Whitman’s Literal-Minded blog.

(more…)

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Wheelbarrows

June 6, 2009

A few days ago a Facebook poll appeared on “wheelbarrow” vs. “wheel barrel” (well, it’s spelled “barrell” in the poll). As it happens, “wheel barrel” was one of the earliest entries in the Eggcorn Database. 

When my vote was posted on my Facebook wall, commenters suggested jocular alternatives to “wheel barrel” — all of which (and others besides) turned out to be attested.

(more…)

Posted in Eggcorns, Spelling | 1 Comment »

Parenting

June 5, 2009

Lisa Belkin, “Let the Kid Be: Could the era of overparenting be over?”, NYT Magazine of 31 May:

… that is the way it is with parenting — which I bet was never used as a verb before the 20th century, when medicine reached the point where parents could assume their babies would survive. At its core, raising children is about instinct and biology, yes, but on top of that, we build an artificial scaffold, which supports what we have come to think of as parenting truths but are really only parenting trends.

Several things to comment on here: that “artificial scaffold”; the history of the verbing parent (and for a bonus, of the compound noun child-rearing); Belkin’s proposed explanation for the innovation of parent (with a counter-proposal from me).

(more…)

Posted in Social life, Words | 1 Comment »

The decimators

June 3, 2009

An Emily Flake cartoon from the New Yorker:

A long time ago I started a posting on decimate, which seemed not to have been discussed in any detail on Language Log. It began:

The Peevy

It’s time to institute an award for Great Language Peeves — peeves that are widespread, of long standing, and passionately advocated, in the face of solid long-time contrary practice by educated speakers and writers, not to mention a thoroughly specious rationale for the peeve.  It’s a crowded field, but I think that for English, one item stands above all others: the verb decimate used to mean ‘destroy or eliminate a large part of’.  Even more than speaker-oriented hopefully, even more than stranded prepositions and split infinitives, it deserves a Peevy for Lifetime Achievement.

(more…)

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Usage | 2 Comments »

A man has to say it

June 1, 2009

In the NYT “Week in Review” section yesterday, there’s a story by Adam Liptak on “The Waves Minority Judges Always Make”, about the U.S. Supreme Court. Along the way, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reported on her own situation:

Justice Ginsburg said her own influence in all sorts of cases at the justices’ conferences was uncertain. “I will say something — and I don’t think I’m a confused speaker — and it isn’t until somebody else says it that everyone will focus on the point,” Justice Ginsburg said.

The other people at these conferences were seven men and one woman, Sandra Day O’Connor (until early in 2006, when O’Connor retired from the court, after which the others were all men). So the effect Ginsburg was describing was almost surely a familiar one: it’s not on the floor until a man says it; a man has to say it before it will be attended to.

The effect is a facet of female invisibility, especially pronounced in professional settings when there are very few women in the group. My daughter, who fairly often is the only woman in such groups, has commented on the effect a number of times, sometimes with considerable annoyance.

I wonder if it has a name (something better than “a man has to say it” but not as broad as “female invisibility”).

Posted in Language and gender | 3 Comments »

Newer Entries »