Anthimeria: Verbing nouns, nouning adjectives
Playing with grammar is an easy way for advertising agencies to grab our attention. Rhetoricians call switching a word from one part of speech to another “anthimeria”. One particular way of doing it has caught the copywriters’ fancy. Virgin Atlantic is “flying in the face of ordinary”. Sky television in Britain invites you to “believe in better”. An Asus computer is the answer if you’re “in search of incredible”. Bergdorf Goodman, the luxury-goods store, is celebrating “111 years of extraordinary”. Yes, welcome to quirky. Welcome to edgy. Welcome to nounified.
Read Think Similar at More Intelligent Life.
And here’s a cat sending an urgent fax.
from Das Kraftfuttermischwerk
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 5th, 2013 at 20:51
In lexicology converting words from one part of speech to another has a more obvious and less cool-sounding name: conversion. I guess linguists are not as creative as rhetoricians. We have some very good examples in Philippine English, like the use of “traffic” and “high blood” as adjectives.
June 5th, 2013 at 22:00
Danica: Pictorial, ocular, gift.
We like verbing and adjectiving directors’ names. “They should Scorsese that thing.” “It’s very Tarantino.” “They’re Von Triering.”
June 6th, 2013 at 01:12
Vice Ganda is making the verbing of names a thing in Tagalog with his “i-Dawn Zulueta mo ako!” and “i-Vice Ganda ninyo yan!”
Awesome cat GIF, by the way. I wish my cat would take care of my correspondence.