Over in the ADS mailing list, Randy Alexander reports on a development in the world of euphemisms, in particular euphemisms for (male) masturbation. Based on the playful pattern in
spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, beating the bishop, jerkin’ the gherkin, …
and hundreds of others (there are websites devoted to these things), some people have moved up one level, to verbing the noun. As the commenter Hypno-Toad said on the Straight Dope message board on 11/20/06,
My roomie and I decided many years ago that really just about any verb and noun can be used in this sense. We just call it “Verbing the Noun.”
Alexander’s finds:
[with reference to the website ChatRoulette, which brings strangers face to face via webcam] If it’s as much of an endless stream of guys verbing the noun as is claimed, it might be a neat CBT [Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy] tool for inducing social anxiety. (link)
[heading for a blog discussion about programs that generate euphemisms] Verbing the Noun, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink (link)
February 7, 2010 at 4:07 pm |
Imus’s Rob Bartlett wondered if pounding the flounder would serve for both male and female.
There’s more to it than verbing the noun.
February 13, 2010 at 8:27 am |
True.
However, if it could become popular, it might help distinguish ‘verb’ from ‘noun’ in popular culture, and — even better — might make grammar sound sexy. Anything is better than the current situation.
March 3, 2010 at 11:07 am |
I still think the best euphemism, drawing from Joycelyn Elders’s situation about 15 years ago, is “Firing the surgeon general”. The Foremen do a great song introducing this one.
http://www.royzimmerman.com/lyrics/best_firing.html
February 15, 2012 at 9:56 am |
[…] Courting the gay vote is a euphemism for engaging in, or soliciting, gay sex (of some kind, not specified, though receptive fellatio — sucking cock — is the most likely act). It falls into a pattern of ostentatiously playful euphemisms of the form Ving the N, especially for reference to male masturbation (my favorite is firing the Surgeon General); there’s a huge list of euphemisms for masturbation, many of them of this form, here; some discussion of display through concealment in these euphemisms here; and a note on the extension to the meta-euphemism verbing the noun here. […]