The Innovative Usage Thread

[linguoboy]

Another interesting one spotted in the wild: "The sort of place where Normon Bates breaks in and showerstabs Janet Leigh while she's on the lam." If "showerstab" is another backformation, it's unclear to me what nominal compound its backformed from.

[Radius Solis]

Another interesting one spotted in the wild: "The sort of place where Normon Bates breaks in and showerstabs Janet Leigh while she's on the lam." If "showerstab" is another backformation, it's unclear to me what nominal compound its backformed from.

It's a curious nonce, certainly. But I would suppose that either "shower" is being incorporated into the verb as an indicator of manner ("stab like in the Psycho scene") or else it's being backformed from a hypothetical rather than an established noun phrase, namely "(a) shower stabbing" (built on the pattern seen in e.g. "a school shooting").

[Ser]

Yet more noun incorporation:

Hey Matt, remember when we Eiffel towered Ruth?

We are going to eiffel tower Sarah hardcore tonight!

Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... el%20tower

Also note the adverb "hardcore".

[Pthagnar]

no *you're* a curious nonce

[Yng]

Dubiously noun incorporation, that one. I'd say that's verbalisation of a standard noun phrase.

[linguoboy]

This one could be a one-off: "It just takes one diamond in the rough to make the rough look terrible by comparison."

[Melteor]

"He made like he was gonna fall but he did a roll instead."
Probably already established and I just noticed it.

[Kereb]

heh yeah that one is established
"make like you're busy"

[Bob Johnson]

I can't find "make like a tree, and get outta here" before the 70s. Back to the Future was a lie. My childhood is ruined.

[linguoboy]

I can't find "make like a tree, and get outta here" before the 70s.

Um...did you misquote that for a reason? Because I'm too dense to see why you would.

[brandrinn]

This one could be a one-off: "It just takes one diamond in the rough to make the rough look terrible by comparison."

I can't figure out what's "innovative" about this one. Is it the use of "rough" as a standalone noun?

[brandrinn]

Another interesting one spotted in the wild: "The sort of place where Normon Bates breaks in and showerstabs Janet Leigh while she's on the lam." If "showerstab" is another backformation, it's unclear to me what nominal compound its backformed from.

"showerstab" as a nominal compound makes perfect sense to me, and wouldn't sound strange or ungrammatical. It's a stab-in-the-shower, as opposed to a normal stab. Deriving a verb from it is the part that makes it sound strange to me.

[Bob Johnson]

I can't find "make like a tree, and get outta here" before the 70s.

Um...did you misquote that for a reason? Because I'm too dense to see why you would.

Mmm.. no, not a misquote. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/quotes

[Melteor]

Another interesting one spotted in the wild: "The sort of place where Normon Bates breaks in and showerstabs Janet Leigh while she's on the lam." If "showerstab" is another backformation, it's unclear to me what nominal compound its backformed from.

"showerstab" as a nominal compound makes perfect sense to me, and wouldn't sound strange or ungrammatical. It's a stab-in-the-shower, as opposed to a normal stab. Deriving a verb from it is the part that makes it sound strange to me.

It sounds TV-tropesy to me. Who would care about this otherwise? Shower scenes only happen in movies.

This one could be a one-off: "It just takes one diamond in the rough to make the rough look terrible by comparison."

I can't figure out what's "innovative" about this one. Is it the use of "rough" as a standalone noun?

Even then it's no different from the good the bad and the ugly, right?

[Yng]

No, it is - normally adjectives can only be used to indicate collective plurals on their own: 'only the good die young', etc. In this case it's 'rough' with a new (arguably?) meaning of 'rough area', or something.

[linguoboy]

No, it is - normally adjectives can only be used to indicate collective plurals on their own: 'only the good die young', etc. In this case it's 'rough' with a new (arguably?) meaning of 'rough area', or something.

It's an innovative reanalysis of the saying. A "diamond in the rough" is a diamond in a rough state, i.e. before polishing. But here "rough" has been taken to mean "a rough area", like the eponymous sections of a golf course.

[brandrinn]

No, it is - normally adjectives can only be used to indicate collective plurals on their own: 'only the good die young', etc. In this case it's 'rough' with a new (arguably?) meaning of 'rough area', or something.

It's an innovative reanalysis of the saying. A "diamond in the rough" is a diamond in a rough state, i.e. before polishing. But here "rough" has been taken to mean "a rough area", like the eponymous sections of a golf course.

Ah, that's the source of the confusion. I guess I'm a semi-literate cretin, because I always thought "diamond in a rough area," as in a diamond that is imbedded in otherwise unspectacular ore or soil, was the original meaning of the term.

[pharazon]

No, it is - normally adjectives can only be used to indicate collective plurals on their own: 'only the good die young', etc. In this case it's 'rough' with a new (arguably?) meaning of 'rough area', or something.

It's an innovative reanalysis of the saying. A "diamond in the rough" is a diamond in a rough state, i.e. before polishing. But here "rough" has been taken to mean "a rough area", like the eponymous sections of a golf course.

Ah, that's the source of the confusion. I guess I'm a semi-literate cretin, because I always thought "diamond in a rough area," as in a diamond that is imbedded in otherwise unspectacular ore or soil, was the original meaning of the term.

At least you're semi-literate: for a long time I thought it was an expression particular to Aladdin.

[Wattmann]

All these back-formations and nominalizations make me consider Future English as heavily polysynthetic and nothing else XP

[Shrdlu]

Isn't that the normal cycle? Isolating - fusional - agglutinating/polysyntetic

[Ser]

If you mean that the chain is going backwards, that is (i.e. fusional > isolating > agglutinative).

[Chagen]

Very minor, but does anyone else use <gratuitous> as a synonym for <obnoxious>?

[linguoboy]

This is a nonce usage, but one I thought was worth drawing attention to nonetheless:

[CTU President Karen Lewis] scoffed at contentions raised Wednesday by CPS officials that the union always intended to strike, no matter what, but could have avoided doing so if it had raised some creative solutions earlier. "That’s what they have to say," Lewis said. "We never always intended to strike."

[din]

Not sure if it belongs here, but I just noticed a hole in my sock and thought 'potato'. Then I realized that that's what I used to call them as a kid ('aardappel').

It still makes perfect sense to me, but I'm sure it really doesn't.

[Ser]

This is a nonce usage, but one I thought was worth drawing attention to nonetheless:

[CTU President Karen Lewis] scoffed at contentions raised Wednesday by CPS officials that the union always intended to strike, no matter what, but could have avoided doing so if it had raised some creative solutions earlier. "That’s what they have to say," Lewis said. "We never always intended to strike."

I think it's perfectly parse-able if you analyze "always intended to strike" as a quotation: We never 'always intended to strike'.