conversion

Definition:

A linguistic process that assigns an already existing word to a new word class (part of speech) or syntactic category. This process is also known as a functional shift or zero derivation.

The rhetorical term for grammatical conversion is anthimeria.

See also:

• Anthimeria
• Attributive Noun
• Denominal Verb
• Enallage
• Introduction to Etymology: Word Histories
• Language Change
• Nominalization
• Stem
• Where Do New Words Come From?
• Verbing
• Word Formation

Etymology:

From the Latin, "turn around"

Examples and Observations:

• "Let's not Rumsfeld Afghanistan."
  (Senator Lindsey Graham, quoted in Time magazine, Aug. 24, 2009)



• "One writer who went on a tour of New York's Harlem district was shown the place where Adam C. Powell was 'funeralised.' Another letter detailed an American friend's eagerness to see the Prince of Wales 'coronated.' On a flight to Boston, flight attendants promised passengers they would soon 'beverage,' but later, because of adverse weather conditions, they said they were 'unable to complete beverisation.' Asked about this trend, one American quipped: 'Any noun can be verbed.'"
  (Kevin Courtney, "Con Text Verbing." The Irish Times, March 18, 2008)



• "Consider sentences such as:
  
  
  • Henry downed a pint of beer.
  • Melissa went to town and did a buy.
  English, we note, lacks a simple means of saying 'to do something in one fell swoop.' This may be why the word down can be converted into a verb to mean 'drink down in one gulp,' and the word buy into a noun which, when combined with the verb do, means 'go on a single massive shopping spree.' This type of fast-moving, thorough activity may represent a change in the pace of life, which is in turn reflected in the language, since we increasingly make use of conversions--the conversion of one part of speech into another."
  (Jean Aitchison, Language Change: Progress or Decay? Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991)



• "Shakespeare was the conversion expert. 'I eared her language.' 'He words me.' Some of his conversions seem really daring. Even the name of a person can become a verb. 'Petruchio is Kated.' But all he was doing was tapping into a natural everyday usage that is still with us."
  (David Crystal, The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin's Press, 2012)



• "Meaning is crucial to the system of word-classes . . ., as it is to the recognition of instances of conversion. Even if it were not for the homophonous noun plane 'carpenter's tool,' we would not wish to relate to plane 'smooth a piece of wood' and a plane 'aircraft' by conversion, because their meanings are not sufficiently close. What is a sufficiently close meaning (and how it can be defined) remains an open question. A slightly dubious example is to bank 'turn an aircraft' and a bank 'side of a hill' which, despite their etymological relatedness, may no longer be close enough semantically for us to wish to say that the same relationship holds between them as between to bridge and a bridge. Somehow, then, we need to operationalise the notion of related in meaning to a sufficient degree to allow us to recognise potential instances of conversion."
  (Laurie Bauer and Salvador Valera, "Conversion or Zero-Derivation: An Introduction." Approaches to Conversion/Zero-Derivation, ed. by L. Bauer and S. Valera. Waxmann, 2005)

Pronunciation: kon-VER-zhun

Also Known As: functional shift, role shifting, zero derivation, category shift