Anthimeria

Definition of Anthimeria
Anthimeria has originated from the Greek word anti-meros, which means “one part for any other.” It is a rhetorical device that makes use of a phrase in a brand new grammatical form, regularly as a noun or a verb. Simply, it replaces one part of speech with every other.

For instance, Shakespeare converts a noun “peace” into verb in this line: “The thunder would now not peace at my bidding” (King Lear). Using nouns as verbs has grow to be such a common exercise that now many nouns are often used as verbs. In grammar studies, anthimeria has every other name, “useful shift,” or “conversion.” In fact, language is usually fluid, and is in consistent transformation. Therefore, use of a verb as a noun or vice versa is not a wonder for linguists.

Use of Anthimeria in Songs
Example #1: These Boots Are Made for Walking (by Nancy Sinatra)
“Yeah, you maintain lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’
And you preserve losing while you oughta not bet
You keep samin’ while you oughta be a changin’
Now, what’s right is right however you ain’t been right yet.”

This song with the aid of Nancy Sinatra suggests two nouns used as verbs, which are “truthing” and “saming.”

Types of Anthimeria
Depending upon its usage, anthimeria has types:

Temporary Anthimeria
This type may be modern day or popular; however, it does not make its appearance permanent in language. For instance, nowadays a transient anthimeria is “hashtagging;” since it has emerged recently, however it can not closing long.

Permanent Anthimeria
This type has turn out to be a permanent part of language after its emergence. For instance, “texting” has turn out to be a permanent a part of language. Another one is “typing.”

Examples of Anthimeria in Literature
Example #1: Under the Greenwood Tree (by way of Thomas Hardy)
“The parishioners approximately here,” persevered Mrs. Day, no longer searching at any living being, however snatching up the brown delf tea-things, “are the laziest, gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I got here among. And they’ll communicate approximately my teapot and tea-things next, I assume!”

Hardy was popular for his creativity, inventiveness, and coining completely weird and new phrases such as, “gossipest,” “poaches,” and “jailest” in this excerpt taken from Under the Greenwood Tree.

Example #2: Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (by way of Thomas Wolfe)
“Flaubert me no Flauberts. Bovary me no Bovarys. Zola me no Zolas. And exuberance me no exuberances. Leave this stuff for those who huckster in it and provide me, I pray you, the advantages of your pleasant intelligence and your high creative faculties, all of which I so absolutely and profoundly admire.”

In these lines, the names of the writers are changed into plural forms, which we have by no means visible before. This is some other precise instance of anthimeria.

Example #3: In the Marvelous Dimension (by means of Kate Daniels)
“Until then, I’d never liked
petunias, their heavy stems,
the unusual spittooning sound
of their name. Now I loved
a petunia for all it become worth
—a purplish blue bloom
waving in a pink clay pot outside
an office window.”

In this poem, Kate has modified the noun “spittoon” right into a verb “spittooning,” and modified the coloration red into an adjective.

Example #4: More Die of Heartbreak (with the aid of Saul Bellow)
“I’ve often got the kid in my mind’s eye. She’s a dolichocephalic Trachtenberg, along with her daddy’s narrow face and Jesusy look.”

In this instance, “Jesus” is converted into a new shape of adjective “Jesusy.” It gives a complete new expression to a noun.

Example #5: Emma (by means of Jane Austen)
“Let me now not suppose that she dares go approximately, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!”

Austen has invented a verb “woodhouse-ing” from an existing noun “woodhouse,” giving a new shape to an vintage noun.

Function of Anthimeria
Anthimeria is very common in novels, brief stories, and specially in poetry, in which such replacement evokes mild feelings of confusion. However, the proposed meaning isn't always tough to recognize from the methods and methods of expression normally utilized in literature. It occurs in advertisements, because the way of life of this global is constantly changing, language must also grow, improve, and develop. Anthimeria, in fact, presents writers a method to describe ideas in a unique way that makes the readers think. Sometimes, writers use a brand new word to create images and imagery. Besides this, it is a way via which we rework and exchange our language over time.

Antecedent Anthology