Word: verbs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This is not always easy to do. In his moments of lucidity, Bennett's king embodies the "Farmer George" image. Plainspoken, fair and with a sense of humor (he calls the Queen "Mrs. King"), George III is nonetheless indisputably in charge. "I am the verb, sir, not the object," he tells a subject. But following the descent into madness, Hawthorne must spew the random gibberings of a man who has lost all control...
...stuffed to the gills with artists, writers, journalists, psychiatrists and academics so set in their reverse-chic ways that no newcomer could hope to adapt. These are people who congratulate themselves for not choosing to vacation among the canape-consuming classes in the Hamptons but use summer as a verb. Hunting, fishing or networking without a license is punishable by a $300 fine and deportation to the mainland...
...Klingon dialogue for Star Trek III. He took his job more seriously than anyone expected, creating a substantial vocabulary and some kinky and sophisticated grammatical rules that are linguistically solid, albeit "kind of unnatural from a human point of view." (Klingon sentences, for instance, follow a bizarre object-verb-subject syntax.) In 1985 Okrand published the vocabulary and rules in The Klingon Dictionary, which now has 250,000 copies in print and is still going strong. Last fall he came out with an audiotape, Conversational Klingon (50,000 copies). On it, Okrand and Michael Dorn, who plays Klingon Lieutenant Worf...
Thanks to that little button on the ever present remote control, the one that cuts off television sound during commercials, a comforting -- even empowering -- new verb has sprouted throughout the land: to mute. Typical usage, describing how you cut off a boring conversation: "I muted...
...partly known by their vacations. Summer in a place where your arrival does not cause a one-hour traffic backup (as happened in Kennebunkport), does not subsume the town (Plains), doesn't fit (Nixon in wing tips on the beach in California) -- or where summer is used as a verb. Your preference for intellectual retreats with friends during Christmas vacation to discuss enterprise zones should give way to the real thing: find a lazy cottage on a lake near Hot Springs, Arkansas, where you can relax...