Epic Fail

Nearly one and a half million women in this country are currently selling their bodies on the platform OnlyFans.

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EV sales in 2024 (1,301,411) were higher by 7.3% and accounted for 8.1% of total sales, up from 7.8% share in 2023. While the rate of growth has slowed, volume continues to expand. In the second half of 2024, more than 700,000 EVs were sold, accounting for 8.7% of total new vehicle sales.

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Epic Fail

The unfortunate FBI spokesperson, Aletha Duncan, speaking at the New Orleans atrocity, declared that the event was not an act of terrorism and made several syntax errors. Then she made a request of the audiance: "This is my ask..."

Nominalization is the nouning of a verb. Appeared as a verb preceeded the noun "request," borrowed from the French, a few times 1000-1200, then did not reappear until 1700. Still, it is rare, appearing in three specialized uses: in card-playing, finance, and fund-raising. More common in Australia and, lesser, in the UK. particularly denoting size, as in "a big ask."

“Do you have a solve for this problem?” "Enclosed is the invite." “Let’s all focus on the build.” “That’s the takeaway from today’s seminar.” Or, from a No. 1 hit in Britain, “Would you let me see beneath your beautiful?”

Each of these jarring sentences contains an example of nominalization, where a verb or adjective has been transmuted into a noun. There are two types of nominalization. Type A involves a morphological change, namely suffixation: the verb “to investigate” produces the noun “investigation,” and “to nominalize” yields “nominalization.” Type B is known as “zero derivation” — or, more straightforwardly, “conversion.” This occurs when a word has been switched from a verb or adjective into a noun without adding a suffix.

They are associated with bureaucracy and general carelessness.

"Their boosters see them as marvels of concision, but one person’s idea of streamlining is another’s idea of a specious and ethically doubtful simplicity." (Hitchens)

In the case of the unfortunate Ms. Duncan, it's the latter.