Verbing Nouns

Verbing Nouns â€Å"Verbing† Nouns â€Å"Verbing† Nouns By Guest Author This is a guest post by Jeannine Sohayda. If you want to write for Daily Writing Tips check the guidelines here. I was disappointed yesterday when, while cruising Facebook, I noticed a national pharmacy company’s request for me to â€Å"fan† them. I simply cannot agree to become a fan of a company that thinks turning nouns into verbs is hip and thereby will increase its customer base. If they had instead asked me to â€Å"become a fan†, I may have indeed considered it, because I do shop there often. I’m no stranger to nouns becoming verbs; we’ve all â€Å"Googled† for information. I must admit, it was refreshing to see that Twitter asks its users simply to â€Å"follow† other users on its site. I suppose â€Å"Twitter me† would make no sense. However, the word â€Å"fan† is already both a noun and a verb, and to see it used in this way was particularly jolting. By the way, even the word â€Å"verb† is a noun. I often wonder what it must be like for people who are just learning English. While they are trying to find words and phrases to get them through their days in English, we are simultaneously butchering and deconstructing our own language, making it difficult even for native speakers to understand each other. If we were to think about it in reverse, about the difficulties of learning Chinese, for example, as Americans we would be infuriated at the idea of their randomly adding new words as we page in vain through our phrase book. If we want people to speak, write and, in general, communicate understandably in English, I’d like to suggest that we set a good example and use the language as it was intended: as a means to illuminate rather than obfuscate. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Regarding Re:Abstract Nouns from Adjectives5 Examples of Insufficient Hyphenation Verbing Nouns Verbing Nouns Verbing Nouns By Maeve Maddox Two readers wonder about the practice of using nouns as if they were verbs. Nanerl wonders if journaled is acceptable. Marilyn writes: My colleagues, at a reputable academic institution, all use the word action as a verb, such as: we must action these items and before these items can be actioned. This drives me crazy because Im sure action does not have a verb connotation, but the word is used so frequently with this connotation that I am no longer sure. Id guess that we all have our lists of verbed nouns we hate to hear or read. We may not, however, all agree as to which are abominations and which are not. Some examples from the web: 1. Clause said all three girls were initially conscious at the scene. Swanson and Zeien were flighted to the Milwaukee Area Medical Complex. (An arrow may be flighted with feathers, but injured people in a helicopter are being flown to a hospital.) 2. How many People Were Impacted? and How Severely? (Whats wrong with affected?) 3. Federalist Papers Authored by Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton was the author. He wrote the document.) The capacity of English for turning nouns into verbs is both its glory and its bane. This line from Richard II shows how Shakespeare managed to verb even such a noun as uncle: Henry IV: My gracious uncle- Edmund of Langley: Tut, tut! †¨Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:†¨I am no traitors uncle; As long ago as 1870 Henry Alford noted that the tendency to use nouns as verbs is so much a part of the nature of English speakers that its futile to rail against it: I do not see that we can object to this tendency in general, seeing that it has grown with the growth of our language, and under due regulation is one of the most obvious means of enriching it. Verbs thus formed will carry themselves into use, in spite of the protests of the purists. The Queens English. In Alfords day people were objecting to the use of experience as a verb. As for journaled and actioned, I think the first is possibly OK while the second is abominable. Sometimes a verbed noun fills a void, but too often it is the lazy expedient of a thoughtless writer. The best course of action I can suggest is to take the trouble to consider appropriate verbs that already exist before taking a noun that has not previously been used as anything but a noun and turning it into a verb. In deciding whether or not to use one of these fairly recent coinages, consider your own sense of aesthetics. If you feel that the word is ugly, dont encourage the spread of it by using it. What can we call this tendency to use nouns as if they were verbs? How about anthimeria? Then we can anthimeria this term and warn people against anthimeriaing nouns! In rhetoric, anthimeria, traditionally and more properly called antimeria (from the Greek: á ¼â‚¬ÃŽ ½Ãâ€žÃŽ ¯, antà ­, against, opposite and ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ­Ã ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€š, mà ©ros, part), is the use of a word as if it were a member of a different word class (part of speech); typically, the use of a noun as if it were a verb. Here are some rants and observations you may enjoy: Writing, Clear and Simple (Link no longer active) Kathy Schenck (Link no longer active) The Grammar Curmudgeon Judy Muller impact as a verb Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Masters Degree or Master's Degree?"Latter," not "Ladder"What the heck are "learnings"?