I found New York Times (November 25) article titled “Helpful definition of modern author” intriguing. It provides humorous definitions of book-related terminologies such as authors, publishers, publicists, readers, books, bookstores, Amazon.com, etc. For example:
You, Author: Act as Book’s Publicist, responsible for promotion. Your Publicist: Acts as your Mom. Tells you that you’re special and talented but makes you do everything for yourself. Your Mom: Acts as Book’s Audience, buying most of the copies. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/25/helpful-definitions-for-modern-authors/
However, I was drawn to the usage of the word, “curate “in the following sentence:
"Your Publisher creates book’s mold ahead of time, in so far as it curates the existing market into which book must fit. (Additional duty: being dumbfounded by that market.)”
I’ve seldom seen the case of ‘curate’ being used as a verb in such a context to mean assess or evaluate. As I checked dictionaries online;
Cambridge English Dictionary defines ‘curate’ only as a noun to mean ‘a priest of the lowest rank, especially in the Church of England, whose job is to help the vicar, with no mention on verb usage.
Oxford Dictionary [Lexico?] defines it as ‘a member of the clergy engaged as assistant to a vicar, rector, or parish priest.’ No mention on verb usage.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as noun: a clergyman (or assistant clergyman) in charge of a parish, and ‘to act as CURATOR of a museum’ as a transitive verb.
Is it common to use ‘curate’ as a verb like “curate the market the book fits in,”?
Can I say just casually “You must carefully curate the offer whether you can fit the job before applying for it,” or “I seriously curated her whether she fits to my life-long partner,” without raising your eyebrows?