From this weeks AWADmail:

My son is nine years old and we have been learning a new word a day for the past week. I thought he wasn't paying attention until I actually heard him using the word gadarene to describe a wreck during a BMX race this weekend. "Well, that was a total gadarene!"

He then explained the meaning to his friend who nodded and went on to use that same word again. By the end of the day, gadarene had become the word for a common mistake that new racers make which causes wrecks. (Rushing out of the starting gate with little or no control over the bike.) Since this was a championship race, there were many young people from many different places who picked up this word and will share it. I foresee hearing the word gadarene often at BMX tracks in the future.


So, years from now, etymologists will wonder how the word gadarene suddenly popped up in the world of BMX racing and how it became a noun at the same time. I wonder how many other words have suffered equivalent fates.

The same thing had occurred to me about mantling! But then, maybe it won't ever be a verb outside of us here...

it won't ever be a verb outside of us here

Or wordorigins, where it originated* and is even included in their groundrules sticky.

* Speaking of concluding conclusions.

"'Mantle:' A reference to a 'mantle of invisibility,' a term used on this board for someone whose post is ignored by a later poster and the same facts/comments repeated as if the original poster were invisible."

~Dave Wilton

So, later recognition of and apology to the original poster
would be dismantling?
(Disclaimer: I wasn't familiar with this term, hope I'm not
mantling anybody!}

In reply to:

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So, later recognition of and apology to the original poster
would be dismantling?

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And ruthlessly mocking someone guilty of this behaviour might be Mickey mantling?

Jomama~

Delicious. Wonderful. Well done.

>And ruthlessly mocking someone guilty of this behaviour might be Mickey mantling?

or either this, one:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=108910

(ASp, you been quasiunredismantled.)

In reply to:

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or either this, one:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=108910

(ASp, you been quasiunredismantled.)

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Nuh-uh! Totally different uses of "Mickey", ergo, no mantling, whether quasi, hemi, demi or semi.

> dismantling

these days, maybe dismantling would be more like trashing on someone while mantling them?

(with all due respect to jomama <smile>)

Oh! "Dis"-mantling! Groannnn!

gadarene suddenly popped up in the world of BMX racing
By gad, I foresee great things for this nine year old.

PS is "gadding about" related to gadarene?
and what about gadfly? or is that stretching it too far

I’ve come across a Middle English word which I think was gadden, but I note Allwords.com suggests :

15c: back-formation from Anglo-Saxon gædeling companion

AHD says about gad:

Middle English, from Old Norse gaddr

There seems to be a common Germanic form - can tswmone kind give us the OEDipal version?

how it became a noun at the same time

'Sbeen a noun for a long, long time, at least since "Romans" talked about the inhabitants of (the land of) Gadara. It appears as such in the text of Matthew, and under a different form in Mark and Luke: Gerasenes.