On an NPR report regarding fighting unwanted Spam email (is that a redundancy? Is there such a thing as "wanted Spam"?) by way of various computer filtering programs, one person declared that part of the problem stemmed from the fact that Spam senders ("Spamists"? "Spamites"?) can trace you from websites you visit. He then pointed out that "anonymizing" is very important.

"Anonymizing"?? Has anyone else heard this horrible neoligism meaning "the act of remaining anonymous"?

And while the verbification of nouns has been well covered here, it seems to me that adjectives aren't often subjected to this same transformation.

I can't help you with the verbifying the adjective, but a recent article that hit the "Wall Street Journal", and our local "Buffalo News" is about the "Buffalo Spammer". A man who sent 825 million e-mails since March 2002. He used stolen credit card numbers and false identities to hide his true location.

I, for one, am glad they stopped him!

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Has anyone else heard this horrible neoligism meaning "the act of remaining anonymous"?

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We use it quite often at work. For us it means "the act of making anonymous". We produce confidential reports for schools on their pupils' achievements in SATs etc., compared with other schools, and publish "anonymized versions" of reports for different types of school, with information that would identify the actual school removed.

Unusually for me, I quite like it.

It fills a gap not filled by, e.g., hospitalize (treat or admit).

Stephen

I have to agree with CJ that we just don't use it that way here. I searched in onelook and dictionary.com. While onelook had nothing listed, dictionary.com listed it in a premium dictionary, to which you had to subscribe.

However, in Google I saw it being use as "anonymize your e-mails." I don't much like it, though I wonder if there is another verb that means that. If not, I will check with my German friend, Robb!

Another verbified noun I heard yesterday was "sunset" in regards to a debate whether a certain law should be extended beyond its original time frame. A radio commentator expressed the opinion that the law should be "allowed to sunset."

People who abuse the English language should be twilighted...

Apparently, this is something that has died out of modern languages, but is to do with adverbifying unsuitable words in Greek. Can anybody give a decent example of one in English.

I heard another noun verbified today..."split-screen". An athelete was saying how he "split-screened" his play so that he could analyze it. That threw me for a loop for a bit!

Graham, I am sorry, but I cannot think of one. I have been trying, though!

Okay, has anyone heard of this (I know; it is a verbified noun and not adjective, but that noun thread is locked)? From Leonard Pitts' column in the Tribune: "...and I had intuited the same thing..."

Yes, all the time, and this one bothers me not in the slightest. Without it you couldn't say:

The clairvoyant drove up her car and we all got intuit.

CJ, do you own a tuit? Especially a round one? If so, can you tell me where I can get one?

Someday, I'll get a round tuit.

If you really want one, I could get one for you. "Round tuits" are an unexplainably popular gift item found in country stores in the midwest, particularly those located at interstate rest stops, the kind of stores that supposedly offer backwoods handicrafts. A cursory inspection reveals most of them are made overseas but that's what you get when you don't leave the interstate in search of Americana. A "round tuit" is a round (Duh!) piece of wood or, more likely, plastic with the word "tuit" on it accompanied by a little paper attachment explaining the wit involved with this little piece of hilarity for those not quite quick enough to grasp it on their own.

Another favorite of these places (and don't ask me why) are napkin holders fashioned like tombstones with the following epitath:

Ma loved Pa.
Pa loved wimmen.
Ma caught Pa with two in swimmin'.
Here lies Pa.

When I first saw this at the age of five or so, I laughed myself silly. The next thousand or so times, well, not so much...

I've gotten a round tuit... but I've lost it somewhere...

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Ma loved Pa.
Pa loved wimmen.
Ma caught Pa with two in swimmin'.
Here lies Pa.

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I loved that one the first time I saw it too! I think I was about 9 and it was when my family visited the "Thousand Islands". It was on a wooden sign.

Another of my favorite sayings on those souvenir items was: "Dinner will be served at the sound of the smoke detector". Of course, for a few years, it was the truth around my house!