Uberfail, full of fail, made of fail, epic fail. When you're writing an e-mail, your spellcheck may never be the same. Ever wonder how "Fail" moved from a verb to a noun?" The New York Times article, "How Fail Went from a Verb to and Interjection," may shed some light on the etymology of a quickly grown grammar trend. Little surprise that they think it has roots in Japanese gaming where fractured English reigns king (but only if you shine ultimately) and the popularity of the Fail Blog whose snark quipping, web surfing fascination lies along the same lines as I Can Has Cheezburger and Photoshop Disasters.Since we know "win" is traveling the same path, anyone want to brainstorm what the next verb will be to leave the ranks of verb virginity? Post in comments my friends.
I'm fond of going in the other direction. My proudest moment of late was verbifying "deus ex machina".
ReplyDelete@Whit "verbifying "deus ex machina"". Ooh, brilliant. For serious.
ReplyDeleteBTW, gaming and porn made the internet. /end stop.