Understanding Anthimeria in Language

Understanding Anthimeria in Language Anthimeria is a rhetorical term for the creation of a new word or expression by using one part of speech or word class in place of another. For example, in the slogan for Turner Classic Movies, Lets Movie, the noun movie is used as a verb. In grammatical studies, anthimeria is known as a functional shift or conversion. The word comes from the Greek, meaning one part for another. Anthimeria and Shakespeare In the National Review in 1991, Linda Bridges and William F. Rickenbacker discussed William Shakespeares use of anthimeria and its impact on the English language. Anthimeria: Use of a word that is normally one part of speech in a situation that requires it to be understood as a different part of speech. In English, and this is one of its greatest virtues, almost any noun can be verbed. Indeed, one can read scarce a page of Shakespeare without running across some new verb hatched out of his teeming loin. To scarf, for example, was the verb implied in Hamlets speech, where he says, My sea-gown  scarfd  about me.   Ben Yagoda wrote about Shakespeare and anthimeria in The New York Times in 2006. Lexical categories are quite useful. They make possible not only Mad Libs but also the rhetorical device  anthimeria - using a word as a  noncustomary  part of speech -   which is the reigning figure of speech of the present moment. Thats not to say its a new thing. In Middle English, the nouns duke and lord started to be used as verbs, and the verbs cut and rule shifted to nouns. Shakespeare was a pro at this; his characters coined verbs -   season  your admiration, dog them at the heels and such nouns as design, scuffle and shudder. Less common shifts are  noun  to adjective (S.J. Perlmans Beauty Part), adjective to noun (the Wicked Witchs Ill get you, my pretty) and adverb to verb (to down a drink).This functional shifting, as grammarians call it, is a favorite target of language mavens, whose eyebrows rise several inches when nouns like impact and access are verbed. Anthimeria in Advertising Yagoda discussed the use of anthimeria in advertising in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2016. The ubiquity of ads spreads the use of new words, well, like crazy. Ads using  anthimeria  are everywhere. They can be divided into several categories, and I’ll start with the most popular. Adjective Into NounMore Happy - SonosBring the Good - Organic Valley MilkWatch All the Awesome - go90Where Awesome Happens - XfinityWe Put the Good in Morning - Tropicana . . .Noun Into VerbCome TV With Us - HuluHow to Television - AmazonLet’s Holiday - Skyy vodkaAdjective Into AdverbLive Fearless - Blue Cross Blue ShieldBuild It Beautiful - Squarespace . . . I am second to no one in my appreciation for anthimeria and the way it gooses the English language. But at this point, it’s a lazy, played-out cliche, and any copywriters who continue to resort to it should be ashamed of themselves. Examples of Anthimeria Kate: Hes still in the rec room, right?Hurley: I moved him to the boathouse. You just totally Scooby-Dood me, didnt you? -   Eggtown, Lost, 2008Ive often got the kid in my minds eye. Shes a dolichocephalic Trachtenberg, with her daddys narrow face and Jesusy look. -   Saul Bellow, More Die of Heartbreak (1987)Flaubert me no Flauberts. Bovary me no Bovarys. Zola me no Zolas. And exuberance me no exuberance. Leave this stuff for those who huckster in it and give me; I pray you, the benefits of your fine intelligence and your high creative faculties, all of which I so genuinely and profoundly admire. Thomas Wolfe, letter to F. Scott FitzgeraldCalvin and Hobbes on Verbing:Calvin: I like to verb words.Hobbes: What?Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when access was a thing? Now its something you do. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -   Bill Watterson, Calvin an d Hobbes