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The great wave of verbing rolls on

In the New Yorker of August 6th, this Haefeli cartoon:

The verbing social-network, here in its PRP form. (Also the idiom X one’s ass off, for an activity verb X, but that’s not what I’m after here.)

A gigantic number of hits for the verbing, in all of its forms. A few more:

[BSE with modal] Should I Social Network Or Not? The Pros and Cons of Social Networking Sites (link)

[BSE with infinitival to] You will have to get used to it though, if you intend to social network with all your friends. (link)

[PRS] He social networks as a method of nontraditionally growing his business and uses Twitter to keep up with headlines. (link)

[PSP] Get social networked and get hired! (link)

[PST] He social networked his way through the job search process (mainly from a coffee shop) and found a promising role with a small but growing manufacturing company. (link)

 

This entry was posted on August 2, 2012 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Conversion, Linguistics in the comics, Verbing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “The great wave of verbing rolls on”

  1. W Says:
    August 2, 2012 at 2:34 pm | Reply

    I call it no big surprise, given that ‘networking’ by itself has been verbable for quite some time.

    • arnold zwicky Says:
      August 2, 2012 at 2:46 pm | Reply

      Yes, network was verbed some time ago. From OED3 (Sept. 2003):

      ‘to cover (something) with a network’ from 1845

      (Broadcasting) ‘to broadcast simultaneously over a network of radio or television stations’ from 1952

      (orig. U.S.) ‘to engage in social or professional ‘networking’ ’ from 1980

      (Computing) ‘to link (computers) together to allow the sharing of data, interactive operation, and efficient utilization of resources; to incorporate into a computer network’ from 1982

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