Word Usage – Which Nouns Fit in ‘(Noun) the Sh*t Out of This’?

verbingword-usage

In the recent feature film The Martian, Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, has to figure out a way to grow food on Mars when it's never been done before in order to survive until he can possibly be rescued, he says

In the face of overwhelming odds I'm only left with one option:
"I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this"

It's very clear from the context that he uses the idiom X the shit out of it to mean 'X it to an excessive degree'.

However, science is a noun but in this case is being used as a verb.

If a verb is used in the phrase, it's obvious:

Pound the shit out of this
Engineer the shit out of this
Flatten the shit out of this

Some other non-verbs that seem to work:

Orange the shit of this – (unofficial pastime at Syracuse University)
Caffeine the shit out of this – (add more than enough caffeine)

[NB: Apparently, if you can figure out a noun which does not work in verbing,
you should   IMMEDIATELY   buy a lottery ticket! ]

However, other non-verbs that don't seem to work:
>Bird the shit out of this  
Door the shit out of this  
Mud the shit out of this

Is there something special about the nouns that do work versus ones that don't?
Is there a specific name for it?

Best Answer

Rule of thumb: Any English word can be pressed into service in any syntactic role. The only limiting factor is semantics.

Bird, for instance, has an established use as an intransitive verb meaning "engage in bird-watching".

While he was at Harvard, his passion for ornithology flourished; he birded with noted ornithologists Ludlow Griscom, William H. (Bill) Drury, Wendell Taber, Allan Cruickshank, Chandler Robbins, Charles Foster Batchelder and others in the Nuttall Ornithological Club. He met his future wife, Elizabeth Wasson (daughter of Isabel Bassett Wasson), who was also a birder, at the Audubon Nature Camp in Medomak, Maine in 1941. -source

That of course won't support the shit out of it, which has to be transitive; but bird might conceivably be extended to transitive use by speaking of birding a particular territory, meaning to thoroughly observe the bird population.

(It also seems that bird is coming to replace the verb birdie in golf; so you may someday encounter "he birded the shit out of the fifth hole".)

Door has an established use as a transitive verb, meaning "injure a cyclist by opening your car door as he passes".

A Staten Island Powerball winner might have to pay a chunk of his fortune to the cyclist he doored with his truck in Park Slope last month. - source

I see no reason why a deliberate and very harmful act of dooring might not be described as "dooring the shit out of a cyclist".

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