I had a student (about ten years ago) named Kim who referred to the portion of her personality that included her own compulsive behaviors as "uber-Kim." So it can work with proper nouns, even. What about with verbs: after all, we have "overkill." Has anyone heard any 'uber + verb' combinations? Seth Dr. Seth Katz Assistant Professor Department of English Bradley University -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Miller, Robert Sent: Thu 6/12/2008 8:42 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: "Uber"-use I have been hearing (and admittedly using) "uber" for about a decade. Perhaps, its use began with a film or song, but I just cannot recall. Bob Miller From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol Morrison Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 9:36 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: "Uber"-use Thank you, Paul. I am wondering if you can place "uber" in front of a noun or an adjective. For instance, one could refer to Ben Stiller in the movie "Zoolander" as an uber-model or as uber-cool. Either way, he is over the top in terms of a being a modeling prototype of sorts and in terms of contrived coolness (or coolness in the extreme). Am I close? I just want to be sure that if I use the term that it is correctly employed. (I'm sure that my students will be impressed with my hipness) Thanks! Carol --- On Thu, 6/12/08, Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: "Uber"-use To: [log in to unmask] Date: Thursday, June 12, 2008, 7:35 AM Carol, 'Uber' is a German word, meaning 'over'. As far as I understand it, it indicates some sort of a "pejorative superlative," if such a thing is even possible. Thus, an "uber-geek" is a geek who is so "geeky" that he or she is way over the top of "geekness" (so my students might rightly call me an "uber-theatre-geek"). Does this make any sense? Paul Sorry, I did not mean to hyphenate "prefix." --- On Wed, 6/11/08, Carol Morrison <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: Carol Morrison <[log in to unmask]> Subject: "Uber"-use To: "Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 9:22 PM Can anyone tell me what the English usage of "uber" as a pre-fix means? (ie. uber-geek, uber-hip). I recently returned from a trip to Seattle (over Memorial Day) where I first heard this word used by my younger brother and his friends in conversation. Now I'm seeing it everywhere... Carol --- On Wed, 6/11/08, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Anthimeria: Hell in a handbasket To: [log in to unmask] Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 9:10 PM Peter, The heavy use of "name" in those definitions may be partly a legacy of the history of the term itself ("noun" basically meant "name") and partly because the Renaissance tradition Lowth et al. had inherited was itself influenced (unsurprisingly) by medieval philosophy, and there were some important philosophical consequences of viewing a noun as a name rather than as a cue that led to representation. I doubt Lowth was weighing in on any of those philosophical arguments by using the definition he did -- it had just become common practice when defining nouns in any language by the time Lowth was born. Bill Spruiell Dept. of English Central Michigan University ________________________________ From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Peter Adams Sent: Wed 6/11/2008 12:40 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Anthimeria: Hell in a handbasket Definitions have all the vices Jesperson and Ed complain of, for sure. And yet, how my students cry out for them. They seem to think, and they may be right, that being able to sort things--words, for instance,--into categories is a necessary step on the path to using them effectively. By the way, I've always wondered why Lowth and almost every handbook author since want to say a noun is the NAME of something. My students find that definition very confusing when they come to learn what proper nouns are . . . names of things in a different sense. Perhaps it would be clearer for novices to say nouns are words that represent . . . persons, places, things, abstract ideas, anything that exists. The last part is the hard part, but I've always resisted saying nouns are names. Peter Adams On Jun 11, 2008, at 12:28 PM, Edgar Schuster wrote: Bill (and others), For what it's worth---and I'm not sure it's worth much---I have a Murray definition of noun as "the name of any thing that exists, or of which we have any notion." Lowth wrote "the Name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion." Maybe this comment from Otto Jespersen is worth a lot more: "If there is one thing I dislike in grammar, it is definitions (of parts of speech) too often met with in our textbooks. They are neither exhaustive nor true; they have not, and cannot have, the precision and clearness of the definitions found in textbooks of mathematics . . . . And thus we might go on to the definitions found even in the best grammars: they are unsatisfactory, all of them, and I do not think they are necessary." The English Journal [!!!], 1924 Ed Schuster ************** Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best 2008. 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