conversion

Definition:

A linguistic process that assigns an already existing word to a new word class (part of speech) or syntactic category. See also:

• Verbing
• Nominalization
• Introduction to Etymology: Word Histories
• Enallage
• Anthimeria

Etymology:

From the Latin, "turn around"

Examples and Observations:

• Kate: He's still in the rec room, right?
  Hurley: I moved him to the boathouse. . . . You just totally Scooby-Doo'd me, didn't you?
  ("Eggtown," Lost, 2008)



• "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)

Pronunciation: kon-VER-zhun

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