Bizarre verbs

["Henry W. Meyerding" <hwm -at- HALCYON -dot- COM>]

There are also some odd ethnospecific (excuse me) varieties of this
pestilence.  In some smatterings of the subculture, using a nown
inappropriately as a verb infers a certain quality to the actions performed
(as in the difference between done and done to).

Example:
        Q.      Stella, your car's in the shop again? (S nods in assent)
                Gee, it's just not fair you get mechaniced like that!

OR
        T:      Did you hear about Charley getting religioned?
        D:      Yea, he's F****in' henpecked by the Virgin now!

There used to be an idiom of expression called various things by
learned grammarians but referred to as "folksy" or "down-home" by
regular people.  It was usually invoked to bring a "personal" feel to
an otherwise dull as ditchwater prose.  It was summarily apprpriated by
the advertising community in the later '40's and has not been in such
generalized useage since.  One if its hallmarks was the using of a big,
long noun in place of some shorter, simpler verb.

Point is, this is English  always has been, too.  At least, insofar as
English can be the metaphore for modern colloquial speech, we're going to
have to live with it regardless of how it conforms to our petty prejudices
of what English properly is.

Yours a tad verbose.

Henry W. Meyerding

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