21
Jul 08Antimeria, explained.
First, a word about the title. Or rather b, several boring words.
“Antimeria” (sometimes incorrectly spelled “anthimeria”) is the use of one word as a different part of speech than normal. Generally, this takes the form of using nouns as verbs–for instance, those who “summer” in “the Hamptons” (who are often “jackasses”).
From Languagehat:
combine anti- ["instead of"] and mereia ["a part"], what you’ll get is “antimereia” or (if you want to Latinize it) “antimeria.”
The subtitle comes from one of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes strips, which, in a beautiful burst of synchronicity, is also handily linked from the LH post.
