Today’s Scenes From a Multiverse:
Cute nouning of horny (along with everywhither and, in fact, pell-mell, plus the colloquial clipping congrats), to mean ‘horniness’, or possibly ‘sexual arousal’. (And, yes, OED2 has everywhither, with cites from 1398, 1851, and 1888. And in OED3 (August 2010), pell-mell in the sense ‘in disordered haste; headlong, in a rush; at reckless or breakneck speed’, frequently referring to the action of a single person, with cites from 1584 through 1986. And in OED2, congrats for congratulations, with cites from 1884 through 1962.)
February 9, 2011 at 11:00 am |
[…] More annals of nouning By arnold zwicky Although it’s hard to judge these things, my impression is that nonce nouning has become a feature of vernacular speech and writing; for some recent examples, see my discussion of Ryan North’s (of Dinosaur Comics) writing style, here, and of the nouning of horny in Scenes From at Multiverse, here. […]