#verbing — Public Fediverse posts

Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories

If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.

A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.

I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:

During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.

Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.

It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.

Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:

Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.

Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.

Things were more complicated for secondary figures:

Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.

Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:

The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.

to these eighty-two:

The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.

After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.

As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.

*

An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.

The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:

To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.

The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.

Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories

If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.

A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.

I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:

During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.

Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.

It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.

Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:

Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.

Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.

Things were more complicated for secondary figures:

Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.

Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:

The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.

to these eighty-two:

The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.

After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.

As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.

*

An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.

The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:

To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.

The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.

Raymond Chandler’s cannibalized stories

If I were asked to name my all-time favourite crime-fiction writer, I would struggle to place anyone above Raymond Chandler. In contemporary literature the one who comes closest is Peter Temple, who, like Chandler, took up the practice in middle age. There’s a lot to be said for it.

A late entrant to the fiction-writing game, Chandler completed seven novels in his lifetime; another one was finished posthumously. For readers it’s a very manageable total. I read the novels in my twenties and reread a few in my thirties.

I was less systematic with Chandler’s shorter work, with the result that I recently picked up an unread – and unusual – collection, Killer in the Rain, first published in 1964. Philip Durham, who was a professor of American literature at University of California, introduces this Penguin edition:

During his lifetime Raymond Chandler published twenty-three short stories. Yet of this relatively small output only fifteen are generally known to the reading public. For a quarter of a century the remaining eight have lain buried in the crumbling pages of old pulp magazines. And these eight stories are among his finest.

Killer in the Rain collects those eight stories. Curiously, though I had never read them before, I had what I described elsewhere (Mastodon; Bluesky) as a recurring experience of déjà lu: half-familiar lines, characters, and scenarios.

It turns out that Chandler ‘cannibalized’ these eight stories for his novels – he once said in a letter that he ‘won’t discard anything’ – and for that reason excluded them from collections published during his lifetime. This textual cannibalization has its own short paragraph on Wikipedia.

Repurposing one’s writing is a common practice. But it made Chandler uneasy, Durham writes, and he was able to justify it ‘only by leaving such stories buried, virtually unknown in the pages of the rapidly disappearing pulp magazines’. I also feel that it’s trickier in fiction than nonfiction. Durham again:

Turning short stories into cohesive novels tested the extent of Chandler’s skill. It meant combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistency, blowing up scenes, and adapting, fusing, and adding characters.

Primary among the characters, of course, was Philip Marlowe, one of the great fictional detectives. For this creation Chandler drew on earlier protagonists, Killer in the Rain making visible the progression from a nameless first-person narrator to Carmady, John Dalmas, and John Evans.

Things were more complicated for secondary figures:

Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.

Perhaps most interestingly, at least from this editor’s point of view, is the expansion of entire scenes. One passage in ‘The Curtain’, set in a greenhouse, is about 1,100 words; in The Big Sleep it’s about 2,500. Durham presents the change in miniature, from the following forty-two words:

The air steamed. The walls and ceiling of the glass house dripped. In the halflight enormous tropical plants spread their blooms and branches all over the place, and the smell of them was almost as overpowering as the smell of boiling alcohol.

to these eighty-two:

The air was thick, wet, steamy, and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish colour, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

He finds both passages ‘intense and vivid’ and notes how each achieves its effect: the first through terseness, the second through mood, hyperbole, and ‘striking similes’. Chandler assembled Farewell, My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake in similar fashion, with variations and twists on the original material.

After Chandler’s death in 1959, frequent calls for the publication of these ‘lost’ stories led eventually to Killer in the Rain, with Durham concluding that ‘there no longer seems any good reason why, provided their origin is clearly explained, they should be denied to the many thousands of Chandler’s readers’.

As well as being thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, the stories can be appreciated as raw material and inspiration for the better-known novels, and they offer a nice insight into an artful form of literary transmutation.

*

An etymological note on cannibalize: The OED dates it to 1655, in the sense ‘To overwhelm, destroy, or eat away at, as if by cannibalism; to crush or manipulate (a person)’. The more literal sense came along two centuries later.

The figurative sense ‘To absorb or destroy (something of a similar kind)’, used especially in business contexts, emerged in 1920; not until World War II do we finally see the word as used in the current post, defined as:

To use (something) as a source of parts or content for another of a similar kind; to take (a part) from one thing to use in another.

The first item the OED records as being thus ‘cannibalized’ is a wrecked French plane (‘parts are stripped from it for use on damaged Allied ships’ —Stars & Stripes, London edition, 26 Nov. 1942, caption). Cannibal itself is borrowed from Latin canibales and Spanish caníbal.

I wrote a little about Agatha Christie – as a verb
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/10/11/to-agatha-christie-v-tr/

#language #AlienEarth #AgathaChristie #slang #writing #blog #verbs #verbing #LanguageChange #pragmatics

to Agatha Christie (v.tr.)

The conversion of nouns to verbs (to impact, to medal, to leverage, to architect) is a continual object of criticism and word rage. But language has been verbing for as long as it has languaged. In fact, there’s nothing that can’t be verbed if you put your mind to it.

‘What about someone’s name?’ you might ask. ‘What about Agatha Christie?’

I’m glad you picked that example. Because the new FX series Alien: Earth offers this great line in its second episode, ‘Mr. October’ (a mild swear word follows):

Context, with a tiny spoiler in the first line:

In the year 2120, a military search-and-rescue team are investigating a spaceship that has crashed to Earth. When a grisly but intriguing discovery threatens to detain them unduly, Siberian (played by Diêm Camille) makes the call to keep moving:

Okay, come on. We’re search and rescue. Let forensics Agatha Christie this shit.

To Agatha Christie something, then, is to figure it out; to investigate and solve a puzzling problem in the manner of Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, Christie’s fictional detectives.

I like this verbing because it reads like improvised slang. There’s no suggestion that the phrase has currency as a verbal eponym, whether broadly in-world or more specifically in Siberian’s own usage or that of one of her speech communities. Rather, it’s an impromptu linguistic innovation that’s both playful and bookish.

It also celebrates Christie’s enduring popularity as a mystery author. What other name could fit in this semantic slot? Only a fictional one, I think: Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, or Sam Spade – but not Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, or Dashiell Hammett.

Other contenders include Jessica Fletcher, Perry Mason, Columbo, Jules Maigret, Nancy Drew, Inspector Morse, and Special Agent Dale Cooper. But it’s more of a stretch to imagine them being so culturally salient in a century’s time.

Alien: Earth was created by Noah Hawley, who also has the writing credit on the episode. He’s probably not even the first person to verb Agatha Christie, but for once I didn’t bother trying to Agatha Christie it.

*

Further reading:

In my A–Z of English usage myths, I wrote that peevers hate verbing, but only when they think it’s new – they constantly use verbings that were established earlier. Who remembers all the yelling and wailing over contact (v.)? Who would believe there even was such a controversy?

See also: ‘Verb all the things’; ‘Verbing weirds language – but in a good way’; and ‘Verbing and nouning are fine and here’s a quiz‘. And a few other posts about detective fiction.

#AgathaChristie #AlienEarth #conversion #detective #detectiveFiction #eponyms #humour #language #languageChange #NoahHawley #pragmatics #screenwriting #semantics #slang #TV #verbing #verbs #writing

to Agatha Christie (v.tr.)

The conversion of nouns to verbs (to impact, to medal, to leverage, to architect) is a continual object of criticism and word rage. But language has been verbing for as long as it has languaged. In fact, there’s nothing that can’t be verbed if you put your mind to it.

‘What about someone’s name?’ you might ask. ‘What about Agatha Christie?’

I’m glad you picked that example. Because the new FX series Alien: Earth offers this great line in its second episode, ‘Mr. October’ (a mild swear word follows):

Context, with a tiny spoiler in the first line:

In the year 2120, a military search-and-rescue team are investigating a spaceship that has crashed to Earth. When a grisly but intriguing discovery threatens to detain them unduly, Siberian (played by Diêm Camille) makes the call to keep moving:

Okay, come on. We’re search and rescue. Let forensics Agatha Christie this shit.

To Agatha Christie something, then, is to figure it out; to investigate and solve a puzzling problem in the manner of Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, Christie’s fictional detectives.

I like this verbing because it reads like improvised slang. There’s no suggestion that the phrase has currency as a verbal eponym, whether broadly in-world or more specifically in Siberian’s own usage or that of one of her speech communities. Rather, it’s an impromptu linguistic innovation that’s both playful and bookish.

It also celebrates Christie’s enduring popularity as a mystery author. What other name could fit in this semantic slot? Only a fictional one, I think: Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, or Sam Spade – but not Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, or Dashiell Hammett.

Other contenders include Jessica Fletcher, Perry Mason, Columbo, Jules Maigret, Nancy Drew, Inspector Morse, and Special Agent Dale Cooper. But it’s more of a stretch to imagine them being so culturally salient in a century’s time.

Alien: Earth was created by Noah Hawley, who also has the writing credit on the episode. He’s probably not even the first person to verb Agatha Christie, but for once I didn’t bother trying to Agatha Christie it.

*

Further reading:

In my A–Z of English usage myths, I wrote that peevers hate verbing, but only when they think it’s new – they constantly use verbings that were established earlier. Who remembers all the yelling and wailing over contact (v.)? Who would believe there even was such a controversy?

See also: ‘Verb all the things’; ‘Verbing weirds language – but in a good way’; and ‘Verbing and nouning are fine and here’s a quiz‘. And a few other posts about detective fiction.

#AgathaChristie #AlienEarth #conversion #detective #detectiveFiction #eponyms #humour #language #languageChange #NoahHawley #pragmatics #screenwriting #semantics #slang #TV #verbing #verbs #writing

If you used "Mailchimped" as a verb, I don't think we can be friends any more.

#stupidAds #mailchimp #language #adSpeak #verbing #commercials #chimp

A retro verbing from Torrey Peters:

"The car travels slowly, block by block through traffic. Tourists and a few groups of teenagers Frogger their way across the streets."

#books #reading #TorreyPeters #LanguageChange #verbing #videogames #RetroGaming

Words spontaneously verbed in recent conversation: whimsy, sideways, statue. I should set up a verbing stall

#words #language #verbing

If you're interested in nouning and verbing, and especially if they bug you, try this quiz I wrote for Macmillan Dictionary a few years ago:
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/learn/language-quizzes/nounings-and-verbings.html

Discussion here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/verbing-and-nouning-are-fine-and-heres-a-quiz/

#language #words #grammar #linguistics #LanguageChange #verbing #nouning #quiz #LanguageHistory

If you're interested in nouning and verbing, and especially if they bug you, try this quiz I wrote for Macmillan Dictionary a few years ago:
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/learn/language-quizzes/nounings-and-verbings.html

Discussion here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/verbing-and-nouning-are-fine-and-heres-a-quiz/

#language #words #grammar #linguistics #LanguageChange #verbing #nouning #quiz #LanguageHistory

If you're interested in nouning and verbing, and especially if they bug you, try this quiz I wrote for Macmillan Dictionary a few years ago:
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/learn/language-quizzes/nounings-and-verbings.html

Discussion here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/verbing-and-nouning-are-fine-and-heres-a-quiz/

#language #words #grammar #linguistics #LanguageChange #verbing #nouning #quiz #LanguageHistory

If you're interested in nouning and verbing, and especially if they bug you, try this quiz I wrote for Macmillan Dictionary a few years ago:
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/learn/language-quizzes/nounings-and-verbings.html

Discussion here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/verbing-and-nouning-are-fine-and-heres-a-quiz/

#language #words #grammar #linguistics #LanguageChange #verbing #nouning #quiz #LanguageHistory

If you're interested in nouning and verbing, and especially if they bug you, try this quiz I wrote for Macmillan Dictionary a few years ago:
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/learn/language-quizzes/nounings-and-verbings.html

Discussion here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/verbing-and-nouning-are-fine-and-heres-a-quiz/

#language #words #grammar #linguistics #LanguageChange #verbing #nouning #quiz #LanguageHistory

@ChristineMalec meh (v) #apathy #verbing https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-verbing-1691035

@NeadReport

Nouning:
A verbing of the proper word "verb", used to annoy language snobs.

#Englishing #Verbing #Nouning #Adjectiveing #Americaning

@NeadReport

Nouning:
A verbing of the proper word "verb", used to annoy language snobs.

#Englishing #Verbing #Nouning #Adjectiveing #Americaning

@NeadReport

Nouning:
A verbing of the proper word "verb", used to annoy language snobs.

#Englishing #Verbing #Nouning #Adjectiveing #Americaning

@NeadReport

Nouning:
A verbing of the proper word "verb", used to annoy language snobs.

#Englishing #Verbing #Nouning #Adjectiveing #Americaning

@Algot How can one learn #Englishing without proper #Verbing and learning how to leverage their portfolio?

@Algot How can one learn #Englishing without proper #Verbing and learning how to leverage their portfolio?

@Algot How can one learn #Englishing without proper #Verbing and learning how to leverage their portfolio?

@Algot How can one learn #Englishing without proper #Verbing and learning how to leverage their portfolio?

@Trishh one of these days I'll learn how to spell "impaired", and more generally learn to English my prose. #Verbing FTW!!! #Englishing FTW!!!! Languageing FTW!!!!!

@Trishh one of these days I'll learn how to spell "impaired", and more generally learn to English my prose. #Verbing FTW!!! #Englishing FTW!!!! Languageing FTW!!!!!

@Trishh one of these days I'll learn how to spell "impaired", and more generally learn to English my prose. #Verbing FTW!!! #Englishing FTW!!!! Languageing FTW!!!!!

@Trishh one of these days I'll learn how to spell "impaired", and more generally learn to English my prose. #Verbing FTW!!! #Englishing FTW!!!! Languageing FTW!!!!!

@Trishh one of these days I'll learn how to spell "impaired", and more generally learn to English my prose. #Verbing FTW!!! #Englishing FTW!!!! Languageing FTW!!!!!

Why I dislike using "leverage" as a verb in education:

1) it refers to the use of borrowed assets, not earned assets, to accomplish something.

2) it is primarily a word from business use, implying education should be "run like a business".

#buzzword
#vocabulary
#education
#verbing