According to Wikipedia:<\/p>\r\n
\r\nIn rhetoric, anthimeria<\/a> [\u2026] involves using one part of speech as another part of speech, such as using a noun as if it were a verb: \u201cThe little old lady turtled along the road.\u201d [\u2026] Other substitutions could include an adjective used as a noun, as in \u201cShe dove into the foaming wet,\u201d interjection as verb, as in \u201cDon't aha me!\u201d, a verb as a noun, as in \u201cHelp! I need some eat!\u201d and so on.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Anthimeria<\/i> isn\u2019t entirely a new word for me; I mentioned it in passing in 1999 in colum rrr<\/a>, about rhetorical devices. But I feel like anthimeria has become a particularly useful concept in recent years, as the internet starts to weird language even further than it\u2019s been weirded in the past.<\/p>\r\n
\u2026Well, I should qualify that; I\u2019m not sure whether to say that phrases like \u201cbecause internet\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t @ me\u201d and \u201call the feels\u201d are anthimeria as such. They do seem to involve changing one part of speech into another (such as changing because<\/i> from a conjunction to a preposition<\/a>), but I feel like other things are going on along with those changes. But even so, I feel like anthimeria is a relevant concept.<\/p>\r\n
(I went looking for what Language Log has to say about prepositional because<\/i>, and I found a 2014 Pullum post about it\u2014but he spends so much of the post calling lexicographers stupid brainless plagiarizing idiots that I was really put off by the post and don\u2019t want to link to it.)<\/p>\r\n
By the way, apparently the linguistic process of transforming a word from one part of speech into another is called conversion<\/i>, zero derivation<\/i>, or functional shift<\/i>. (But I may be misusing those terms. I got them from an article titled \u201cLinguistic Conversion in Grammar<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\r\n