I'm not sure if this has been pointed out yet, but didn't this use of
"faze" start with the original Star Trek series--the 'fazer' that would
stun aliens and various creatures? I recall it as a popular verb in our
high school slang, back in the 1970s.
Larry
____________________________
Larry Beason, Associate Professor
Director of Composition
University of South Alabama
Mobile, AL 36688-0002
>>> [log in to unmask] 04/23/05 10:11 AM >>>
For me, 'fazed' is not unsuitably informal, although I encourage my own
students to write with a middle level of formality, so perhaps I'm
operating with different criteria of appropriateness. (Although I must
say that any word which has been around since Middle English certainly
has some claim to be standard.)
As for its use as a participial adjective, that too I find defensible.
It doesn't appear in dictionaries for the same reason that
"strengthless," which Ed mentioned in another post, does not: the use is
explained by the ordinary productive morphology of the language.
Conversion from participials to adjectives is incredibly common and
should not require sanction by a dictionary for us to use a participle
this way, even in the most formal writing.
I too see the real problem as lying with the prepositional choice (along
with the rather awkward gerund).
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
PAUL E. DONIGER wrote:
> In finally getting around to grading my latest set of senior English
> papers (Hamlet Logs), I came across a usage issue that has come up
> before and that gives me some minor trouble. My student wrote:
>
> "Hamlet doesn't seem phased [sic] at all from having killed Polonius."
>
> Aside from the misspelling of 'fazed', I am troubled that the word is
> being used in a clumsy (or, dare I say it, "wrong") manner. My
> dictionaries all refer to 'faze' as a transitive verb, and that's how
> I grew up, too. There is also no indication in my dictionaries that
> 'fazed' is ever used formally as an adjective. Does anyone approve, in
> formal, academic writing (SWE) of my student's usage?
>
> For the record, I am suggesting that my student re-write as follows:
> "Killing Polonius does not seem to faze Hamlet at all." I'm not in
> love with this sentence either, but I do think it's a little better --
> frankly, I don't like the word 'faze' one bit in this context; it
> seems very weak. I'd cut the whole sentence and just get on with
> commenting on Hamlet's flippancy with Claudius over the location of
> the body.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Paul
>
>
> "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
> improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128). To join or leave
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