I edited this question and used "daisy chain" as a verb. I'm wondering if that title is technically grammatically correct.
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1Ah - you're from CHAOS! Now I understand the Ψ! – Daniel Jul 29 '11 at 14:43
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Yup! In the flesh. I'm not a custodian of ELU, though - that's my excellent colleague Lauren Ψ. – hairboat Jul 29 '11 at 14:49
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Many nouns have been verbed. – mgkrebbs Jul 29 '11 at 18:08
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@mgkrebbs Would that cause a chain reaction? – Ronan Dec 18 '14 at 12:08
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@mgkrebbs Adjectival nouns verbify adverbially. – Rand al'Thor Dec 18 '14 at 20:29
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@mgkrebbs http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/28 – starsplusplus Dec 21 '14 at 04:05
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Stop daisy chaining these comments! – bib Dec 22 '14 at 17:23
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To daisy-chain (preferably with hyphen) means to cascade—output of item 1 feeds into item 2, output of that feeds into item 3, etc. Compound verbs are permitted in English, so yes you can use this one.
Monica Cellio
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1About 1/3 of all the written references in NGrams don't have a hyphen, so your implication that only the hyphenated form is correct seems unnecessarily prescriptive. – FumbleFingers Jul 29 '11 at 14:12
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I'm not really a prescriptivist, but in this case (as with multi-word adjectives) I find it much easier to parse with the hyphen. And you did say that 2/3 of the NGrams you looked at used it, so it's pretty common. – Monica Cellio Jul 29 '11 at 16:25
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I'm not really criticising - I think historically with these kind of 'neologisms' where a compound noun starts getting used as a verb, they usually start life with a hyphen, then become fused into a single word. There's a sort of continuum of rare / not uncommon / usual / normal /standard / correct involved, and it's often hard to know where to place any given usage on that scale. Particularly since many usages are in the process of moving along that scale in one direction or the other, and dictionaries can't always keep up. – FumbleFingers Jul 29 '11 at 17:44
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Yes, you can daisy chain as a verb (this chart is about 1000 written instances).
Obviously OP doesn't need a definition, but in case anyone else does...
Originally a daisy chain was simply a garland of plucked daisies, linked together by splitting the stem end of each and threading the next stem through (children often make them from daisies growing in the lawn between mowings).
By metaphorical usage the term has been extended to many "chained" processes or configurations. Particularly, as in OP's case, to the linking of multiple electronic/computer components, each with a "pass-through" socket so the next device can be plugged in to the same shared control wiring.
Metaphorical usages are often (but not always) hyphenated, particularly when using as a verb.
FumbleFingers
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Sounds good to me.
I've probably used "daisy chain" as a verb 100 times for every time I've used it as a noun.
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@drm65 Here, I've found a link for it. (Sorry I edited out the part you responded to, but now I forgot what I said.) – Kit Z. Fox Jul 29 '11 at 14:07
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1@Kit: You could be right, but even so, Dictionary.com should at least link somewhere for the verb form. – Daniel Jul 29 '11 at 14:08
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Perfectly valid. "To chain" has been a verb, simply meaning to link in a series, for quite some time, so it's only natural that the related term "daisy-chain" (evoking an image of large "nodes" - flowers - tied together) would follow.
KeithS
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