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I came across this on an episode of Gilmore Girls (2.16 - There's the Rub), where Emily Gilmore says "I can't believe you let me get sixty-fortied!" (60-40d)

I can't find much reference to this online, just this one.

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    This is a novel usage, not standard English. Feb 28, 2022 at 15:35
  • @EdwinAshworth, yes the usage is clearly novel, but it's not merely one-off, as at least 5K people heard this phrase somewhere, and were curious enough about its meaning to come to this page. This suggests that the phrase has percolated out of this particular television programme and may be becoming a part of a slang, even if only within some limited social circles. Such developments of the language, recent as they may be, are within the scope of this site.
    – jsw29
    Feb 28, 2022 at 17:40
  • @jsw29 I believe that only when some elected usage panel from a well-edited dictionary picks up a sufficient currency to include the term does it fall properly within the scope of this site. OED apparently still refuses to endorse the far more widely known 'interfrastically'. Feb 28, 2022 at 19:06

1 Answer 1

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The episode transcript earlier explains

LORELAI: This isn’t a singles bar, Mom. It’s a sixty-forty bar.

EMILY: A what?

LORELAI: Sixty-year-old men hitting on forty-year-old women, divorcees mostly.


When later the expression you mentioned comes up it refers to that:

EMILY: Yes, by sitting me at a bar where you practically forced me to engage in inappropriate behavior.

LORELAI: What?

EMILY: You let me get sixty-fortied!


As Silenius describes in the comments this is a form of transforming another class of words to a verb - or verbing / verbification. Therefore using the numbers as a verb by putting them in the right context and adding a verb ending.

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    You might add a sentence about how adjectives and nouns can be coerced into behaving like, or transformed into, verbs just by putting them in the right syntactic context. For example, "He painted the whole house charcoal gray. He even charcoal grayed the doghouse!" Something similar is happening in the OP's example.
    – DyingIsFun
    Aug 16, 2016 at 19:03
  • Verbing weirds language -- Calvin (from "Calvin and Hobbes")
    – Nomic
    Aug 17, 2016 at 2:46

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