Making words work better
The verbal noun verbing is first cited a surprisingly long time ago, in 1766. But, as the OED notes, it was rare before the late 20th century...once a feature of language is visibly or vocally shunned, fatwas against it take on a life of their own.
Now, apart from the fact fortuitous is being applied to a person, which surprised me, what does it mean? Does it just mean ‘fortunate, lucky’ or does it mean ‘by a lucky chance or coincidence’? Or just 'by chance'?
But no, it’s not a one-off. More than that: it seems to be really quite common, especially, of course, in that hotbed of solecism (😉) the US.
Jeremy Butterfield Editorial 