What do quarterback Tim Tebow and federal judge Robert Bork have in common?

January 19, 2012

: Tebow Tebowing (image from www.andpop.com)

It’s been a while, but pls clarify is now officially back in action, and residing at the new and improved website for Rosky Legal Education.

I’ve posted before on the verbification of nouns, especially techie nouns like blog. Imagine my surprise when I opened the NY Times this weekend and saw this heading on the front page:

He’s a Quarterback, He’s a Winner, He’s a TV Draw, He’s a Verb

The article brought me up to a speed on the cultural phenom that is Tim Tebow—the movie-star handsome (as my dad would say), second-string quarterback for the Denver Broncos who is also a devout Christian. Tebow’s religious devotion is quite public: to celebrate success on the field, he drops to one knee and bows his head in prayer.

Hence the verb: to Tebow. As Dan Barry explained in the TImes article,

Around the world, people are “tebowing” — kneeling in prayer, with head resting on one hand, oblivious to surroundings, just as Tebow does after victories.

Wow! Verbification of nouns has become commonplace, but it’s not every day that a human being gets verbified. One of the many ways that Tim Tebow is special.

As it happens, NY Times Dan and I both live in Maplewood (that’s Jersey, people). I accosted him on the train to discuss his article and my fascination with the verbification of a human. Dan helpfully pointed out that boycott is another verb derived from a person’s name. Who knew?

Lawyers and other Supreme Court watchers fondly recall our own example of human verbification: Borking, derived from federal judge Robert Bork’s ill-fated confirmation hearings back in 1987. The word is still very much in use—cbsnews.com published this headline just a couple months ago: