Functional shift again
In a post several years ago, we discussed the phenomenon of functional shift, the process in which words belonging to one part of speech are repurposed as other parts of speech. That post primarily focused on the “verbing” of nouns, as when the noun contact begat the verb contact, but functional shift can follow countless other paths.
For instance, a noun can take on a new life as an adjective, as happened to the nouns legion and myriad, both of which originally referred to a large number of people—a legion was a Roman military unit of 3,000 to 6,000 troops, while myriad meant “a group of 10,000, especially 10,000 troops.” Both words are now often used adjectivally to mean “very numerous,” as in The problems facing the new Middle East peace plan are legion or The speaker described the myriad difficulties of earning approval for a new vaccine.
Verbs can turn into adjectives too, as when the verb spare (spare a dime) became the adjective spare (a spare tire). Or they can turn into nouns, as when the verb kill (killed the deer) became the noun kill (skinned and butchered his kill) many centuries ago, or more recently when the verb reveal (revealed my new look) gave rise to the noun reveal (a shocking reveal in the show’s season finale).
Adjectives, for their part, can become nouns (My bad!) or verbs (attempted to better her situation) or, in a pinch, adverbs (Do not go gentle into that good night!). Adverbs can become nouns (the great hereafter), and prepositions can become nouns (have an in at the company) or verbs (offed a rival mob boss). Both conjunctions and interjections can be redeployed as nouns as well (no ifs, ands, or buts; said our goodbyes).
Speaking of interjections, they can be formed out of almost any other part of speech. They can be nouns (Rats!), verbs (Damn!), adjectives (Cool!), adverbs (Well!), or conjunctions (As if!). Could even a preposition be used as an interjection? If it hasn’t happened yet, there’s no reason why it couldn’t at some point in the future…
Thank you for visiting the American Heritage Dictionary at ahdictionary.com!
