I’m new to this forum so I hope I’m not making a cardinal error of any sorts e.g. by posting a message about a non-issue to the wrong section of the board.  :P

I was discussing certain issues related to our social circles with my friend one day and we came to the conclusion that our aforementioned circles resemble CNN in the way that gossip seems to travel at the speed of light. Hence came the idea of using the noun CNN as a verb. It wouldn’t be the most flexible verb in the world as it doesn’t have any vowels, but it’s certainly a word known to almost all people in the Western world. How would it sound?

- Did you hear the latest about Blanche and Richard?
- Yeah, Katey CNN’d it already

or

- The Senator said she was CNN’d the information as soon as the source was in possession of it.

I’m not entirely sure if it’s worth utilising in one’s everyday use of the English language; I suppose I’m looking for comments either in the positive-neutral range or a blunt denunciation.

Hi GaryK,

I have never heard of CNN as a verb, but this is the right part of the forum to post a suggestion like that.

Maybe CNN could be accepted as a verb, maybe not. Either way, I don’t want any information CNNed to me.

When I saw the subject of this post, I assumed that the meaning was not to do with speed of delivery but rather an expression of frequent repetition of the same scrap of information at short intervals.

I will confess that I am a "newsophobe", I manage to go for days without hearing, seeing or reading any news. When I do "catch up" as is inevitable from time to time, I rarely feel that I have been deprived. I wish I had been around in the days when (so I have heard) the BBC would occasionally, at the time scheduled for a news broadcast on the wireless (!) simply announce that there were no news. (In those days, they almost certainly treated news as plural!)

Of course, ‘CNN’ like any other word or phrase can be used as a verb (what I call "temporary verbs!").  Whether or not it will become a "permanent verb" only time will tell!

".....this brings to mind the fact that any word or phrase can be used as a verb.  What I call temporary verbs!
Ex.1  "Kids, I want you to clean your rooms right now!"
  "But, Mom!"
  "Don’t ‘but mom’ me!  I said right now!"
Ex.  I asked my wife, "Sweetheart, do you want to go to the party tonight?"
 She said, "Maybe"
 If she ‘maybe’-s me one more time, I’m going to lose it."

To be or not to be

Sitran

I think it all started in  the Elizabethan England, where you could happy your friend, malice or foot your enemy.

No one, however, was better at residual rule breaking in English than William Shakespeare, who could "out-Herod Herod", or "uncle me no uncle."

According to _The Story of English (1993)_

Flaminius:

William Shakespeare, who could "out-Herod Herod", or "uncle me no uncle."

Great (semi-) Classical reference!  I think it is very natural for noun-forms to become verb-forms and vice versa!

Flaminius:

I think it all started in  the Elizabethan England, where you could happy your friend, malice or foot your enemy.

I think that we (other than me, really, "you guys") could find some classic Classical references, like say the "dogness" of Platonic Philosophy!

Sitran

It is useful to try to leave the categories of Latin grammar. In Chinese, the traditional view is that there are just two kinds of parts of speech, which can be loosely translated as 1) particles, 2) the rest. "Nouns" may function as "verbs" like in the examples quoted so far in this topic, many "adjectives" are better referred to as "stative verbs" etc.

anders, you have a great point!

In Chinese, if everything else goes perfectly all right, parts of speech is a function of positions of the words in the sentence.  If you see a word/morpheme before a proper noun (like Confucius), the chances are that the word is a verb (like to educate), thus you will get "to educate Confucius" in gross.

If you see a word/morpheme after a proper noun (again Confucius), the chances are that the word is a noun (like education), thus you will get "the education of Confucius."  Whether Confucius is an educator or a student being educated is not explicit in the sentence.

Flaminius
In this system I see a lot of similarity to English verb-noun charade.