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Subject:Re: Tell Me About Verbing Nouns, Please From:Rowena Campbell <campbell -at- ANGIS -dot- SU -dot- OZ -dot- AU> Date:Fri, 18 Feb 1994 11:57:05 +1100
Re Beth Vollbach's "Tell Me About Verbing Nouns, Please":
[Is "verbing nouns" a noun qualified by an adjective formed by giving a noun
a verbal form?]
I was just typing up my new signature file (see below) when I saw Beth's
message. It seemed relevant, so I thought I'd have a quick skim through the
book from which I took the quote. This is what I found in "The Story of the
English Language" by Dr Robert Burchfield, which appears in "Oxford English".
In a section entitled "Modern English: 1776 to the Present Day" Burchfield
comments,
Back-formations are very numerous, as reminisce (verb) (1829) from
reminiscence, and window-shop (verb) from window-shopping.
It's not a lot, but it's something.
Incidentally, if you haven't yet seen it, I recommend this wonderful
book,"Oxford English - A Guide to the Language" compiled by I.C.B. Dear. It
is an Oxford Reference book, first published by Oxford University Press in
1986 and first issued as a paperback in 1992.
Rowena Campbell
campbell -at- angis -dot- su -dot- oz -dot- au
