Your New Favorite Word
Episode 1.05
Starting from the same word, Jamis and Tessa follow very different research paths. Jamis plays with lexical ambiguity, while Tessa shows us the glories of verbing, aka “denominalization”.
Listen to the episode:
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(8.18M, 21m 36s)
(8.18M, 21m 36s)
Highlights
- 01:38 — Flabbergast
- 02:20 — Synonyms of flabbergast
- 03:03 — Gobsmacked
- 03:49 — Flummox
- 04:10 — Buffalo
- 04:25 — Buffalo sentence
- 05:34 — Police sentence
- 06:29 — Can-can sentence
- 07:52 — Had-had sentence
- 08:55 — That-that sentence
- 09:48 — Fish and Chips sentence
- 10:38 — Chinese poem, “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”
- 11:33 — Codswallop
- 12:17 — To floor
- 12:49 — “Verbing weirds language”
- 13:48 — Denominalization
- 14:57 — Differing opinions on verbing words
- 18:06 — Names as verbs (Venmo, Paypal, Uber, FaceTime, Skype, Photoshop, etc.)
- 19:07 — Names of people, as verbs (Marie Kondo)
- 19:26 — Eponymous verbs
- 20:46 — “If you became a word, what would it mean?”
Show Notes
- Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo (Wikipedia)
- James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher (Wikipedia)
- That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is (Wikipedia)
- Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (Wikipedia)
- Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (YouTube, recitation of the poem in Chinese, with English translation)
- List of linguistic example sentences (Wikipedia)
- Calvin explains “verbing”
- One discussion of denominalization
- 1979 article, When Nouns Surface as Verbs
- Another opinion on verbing
- Eponyms, or, I seem to be a verb