Plutoing Around

I don't usually approve of verbing nouns, but sometimes it's amusing enough.* I was interested to follow several pointers to the announcement by the American Dialect Society that they had chosen "plutoed" as their word of the year. NB, the word "plutoed" is intended as the past-tense form of the verb "to pluto", meaning to devalue something, in analogy to the way in which the quondam planet Pluto was demoted to the status of minor planet in 2006 by the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union.

Upon reading the press release about the vote for "to pluto", I am fascinated to see that the word "snowclone" was nominated for "most creative word or phrase"; to read about snowcloning in action, visit Language Log. (Tell Arnold I said "hi!")
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*And, of course, there's this gem: "Any noun can be verbed", which I first heard out of the mouth of fellow graduate student Myron c. 1980.

Posted on January 23, 2007 at 01.17 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Such Language!

4 Responses

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  1. Written by chris
    on Tuesday, 23 January 2007 at 01.56
    Permalink

    (Tell Arnold I said "hi!")

    I'll do that. I'm in daily postcard contact with him, and language log postings (or reports thereof) make a more-than-weekly appearance in his cards.

  2. Written by Chris W.
    on Tuesday, 23 January 2007 at 09.45
    Permalink

    [T'other Chris here…] I understood it as the past participle, not the past tense, though. As in "XY has been [or was] plutoed".

  3. Written by jns
    on Tuesday, 23 January 2007 at 13.57
    Permalink

    Quite so, Chris t'O.; I did too, but said it incorrectly. At least that was what I thought at first, but if they're going to insist on forming the pseudoinfinitive "to pluto" as they do, then we have to consider a full conjugation, no? "Pluto was plutoed", certainly, but also "The IAU plutoed pluto" I suppose. Verbing is always such a slippery slope.

    Let me extend a hearty welcome regardless; it's always nice to see another motsseur around.

  4. Written by Chris W.
    on Tuesday, 23 January 2007 at 15.38
    Permalink

    Motsseurs! Motsseuses! (I miss living in France …)

    I for one was a bit surprised that they voted "plutoed" as opposed to the putative verb "pluto".

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