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Mitsuo23 Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

coined terms

Hi,

I am looking for coined terms that are made up using fundamental grammar rules.

"Why don't you google it?" or "The score is totally Micky Mousing" is a good example but that's all I can come up with. Would you give me some more basic ones? The ones maybe end up with "-ed" to use it an adjective or something like that.

Thank you,
M
  

Top answer

"totally Mick e y Mousing" isn't right. You can say something is "Mickey Mouse", meaning poor quality, but it doesn't inflect as far as I know. Here are some more brand names that, like "google", have been turned into verbs and can inflect with "-ed" and "-ing": hoover (clean with a vacuum cleaner; BrE) sellotape (fix with sticky tape; BrE) yo-yo (oscillate) photoshop (digitally manipulate (a photo)) tipp-ex (correct or blank out text) xerox (photocopy; AmE) I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I can think of right now.

— GPY

  • "totally Mick e y Mousing" isn't right.
  • You can say something is "Mickey Mouse", meaning poor quality, but it doesn't inflect as far as I know.
  • Here are some more brand names that, like "google", have been turned into verbs and can inflect with "-ed" and "-ing": hoover (clean with a vacuum cleaner; BrE) sellotape (fix with sticky tape; BrE) yo-yo (oscillate) photoshop (digitally manipulate (a photo)) tipp-ex (correct or blank out text) xerox (photocopy; AmE) I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I can think of right now.
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11 Answers
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"totally Mickey Mousing" isn't right. You can say something is "Mickey Mouse", meaning poor quality, but it doesn't inflect as far as I know. Here are some more brand names that, like "google", have been turned into verbs and can inflect with "-ed" and "-ing":

hoover (clean with a vacuum cleaner; BrE)
sellotape (fix with sticky tape; BrE)
yo-yo (oscillate)
photoshop (di
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Why does "Mickey Mouse" stand for poor quality ???
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Perfect StrangerWhy does "Mickey Mouse" stand for poor quality ?
It is childlike.
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Hmm... Well, things for children don't have to be of poor quality, do they?
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GPY You can say something is "Mickey Mouse", meaning poor quality
Actually, "poor quality" doesn't really give the full idea of its meaning (as used in BrE). It also has connotations of "small-time, amateurish or trivial" (a meaning given in Wikipedia).

Wikipedia also says that "in parts of Australia it can mean excellent or very good".
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It's actually a reference to mickey mouse watches; cheap, imitation, poor quality watches imported into Britain in the period after the second world war.
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Mister Micawber Perfect StrangerWhy does "Mickey Mouse" stand for poor quality ?It is childlike.
And you can't expect high quality in things that were made by a cartoon mouse.
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It seems there are several theories about its origin. According to www.etymonline.com:

As an adjective meaning "small and worthless" it dates from 1936, originally used especially of mediocre dance-band music, a put-down based on the type of tunes played as background in cartoon films.
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Actually Micky Mouse and Micky Mousing are different terms. "Micky Mousing" is used in film industry to typically express the films in which the audio and the visual image are completely in sync.


Here's the example.

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mitsuwao23Would you give me some more basic ones?
You might be interested in the words on this article.
I hope this helps.
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