10 July 2008

These boots are made for verbin'

Now, if the average 18-year-old wouldn't find Nancy Sinatra the antithesis of cool, here would be an awesome way to illustrate the concept of word-formation through noun-to-verb and adjective-to-verb conversion:

You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin'
and you keep losin' when you oughta not bet.
You keep samin' when you oughta be changin'.
Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.
Truthin' is not actually Nancy Sinatra's fault. The verb truth (well, treuþen) was attested before 1300, says the OED (subscription needed). Since 1300, we've had four meanings that are now obsolete, and we're on to meaning 5, 'to bring to truth, adjust accurately', with the only example from 1881. Nancy does not seem to be saying "You keep lying, when you ought to be setting things right" though, but rather "when you ought to be telling the truth". Meaning 6.

Samin' is not attested in the OED as a verb. This one is also quirky semantically. Most adjective-to-verb conversions are semantically to do with becoming whatever the adjective is. "The new lands begin to green with vineyards" or "The white frock which she had so carelessly greened on the damping grass" (see also meaning 5 in the OED for truth). But this one is not about becoming the same in an inspired bout of Gleichschaltung, it's about staying the same.

Nancy Sinatra would be a welcome change from the ever-present Jabberwocky, though...

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