I came across an online article the other day called You’ve Been Verbed via one of the many library newsletters I subscribe to. The article talks about the penchant in English to turn, usually nouns but sometimes other words too, into verbs. The grammatical term for it is “denominalisation” but I like “verbing” better, it is much more fitting, don’t you think?
Verbing has been going on for a very long time. Shakepeare did it and apparently the 1552 Book of Common Prayer did it too. Verbing is very easy to do in English because there are few words that use inflections. So we can make verbs from friend, text, and Google.
I verbed just the other day at work while talking to a coworker. We were discussing an interlibrary loan request that we had given a conditional status to. I don’t remember exactly what I said but it was something like, “we conditionaled that request the other day.”
The process can also work backwards; we can unverb words. Has anyone sent a tweet on Twitter?
It’s an entertaining article and not very long so read it if you get the chance. In the meantime, have you verbed lately?
Ha – have you met me?! This is the lifeblood of my communicating in this world – turning everything into a verb! And further, turning things into adjectives and adverbs, well – if they’re not already. Why settle for a verb/adverb/adjective that kind of fits, when you could abscond the noun or adjective that fits perfectly and just verbify/adjectify/adverbify it?
Gods bless English for being so very promiscuous!
You reminded me of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin tells Hobbes: “Verbing weirds language.”
I don’t think I have verbed before, because I think I’m generally careful about using words I recognize as “real” words. I hate using “journal” as a verb, for example! But I do like how flexible English is, and I talk about “googling” all the time.
I do this all the time, as well as turning verbs and nouns into adjectives, and vice versa. It used to drive my mother insane! I try my best not to do this in my blog posts though, as a large part of the reason I blog is to improve my English skills.
Have you read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth? There’s a great example of verbing in that book: this incredibly annoying but self-satisfied family whose surname is Chalfen, verb their name, so that they have a short-hand way to express “acting like a member of the family.” “Where’s so-and-so?” “He’s been Chalfening around in the attic since lunchtime.” And so on. Then it gets co-opted by some characters who dislike them, and it all ends up being funny and interesting.
Is tweet at noun or verb? I can’t understand Tweet or Twitter. Are they the same? I Google, but I thought that was a verb, but now that you mention it, it is a noun, isn’t it! Dorothy W made a good point. I never thought of journal as just a noun. How delightful this is!!
You’ve just pointed out why it’s so hard to teach English to speakers of other languages. I used to teach ESL to adult newcomers, had to explain to them the ‘rules’ of the English language. Immediately after that, I would tell them all the exceptions to these rules. That got some students really frustrated. And now we’re verbing nouns and nouning verbs?
You are certainly right about this having been part of the growth of English for centuries. I once came across the verb to canalise in a gardening magazine, meaning to turn a natural stream into a miniature canal flowing the way you want it to when landscaping a garden. I was convinced this was a new form but investigation showed it in common usage in the Victorian era. My ‘favourite’ example came from a music magazine where the writer, commenting on the reception a certain orchestra had received, wrote that the audience ‘ovated’ for eight minutes. I think he rather missed his mark there. It read to me as if they were all laying eggs at tremendous rate of production. Omelettes all round?
This is actually one of my favourite things about English! My native language (Portuguese) isn’t nearly as flexible, which makes for some awkward constructions sometimes. I don’t much worry about what are or aren’t “real” words when speaking or writing informally. To me this is all part of the fun of using language.
Ah verbing…. the essential element of lolcatting. (do you see what I did there?
). Sometimes I love it and think it is very, very funny. But I cannot accept impact as a verb, or indeed, journal.
Tara, yes god bless the English language for being so promiscuous, and cheers to you for taking such creative advantage of it. We really must get together soon!
Dana, that is most a most excellent example! I miss Calvin and Hobbes.
Dorothy, you’re such an English professor!
Delilah, heh, I’m sure you didn’t mean to drive your mother insane
Emily, I am sadly deficient in Zadie Smith. What a wonderful verbing example though. When I get around to reading White Teeth I am going to love it!
Grad, get with the times!
Tweet and twitter were originally verbs but now they are both nouns. Twitter is the name of the service like Google or Blogger and posts are called tweets.
Arti, yes, I imagine English is not easy to teach or learn. When I was in school and had at various times Spanish and German and we’d complain about all the “exceptions” my teachers would never be sympathetic, telling us that people learning English had it harder.
Annie, LOL, ovated does indeed sound like you describe! Oh my goodness, that’s good. And it is no wonder that it hasn’t become common usage.
Nymeth, English can come up with awkward constructions too but that people can change them and and do all kinds of interesting things, that is definitely fun! We have to keep the grammarians and dictionary makers on their toes!
Litlove, LOL, most excellent! I don’t like journal or impact as a verb but I am certain I have used both as such. Text as a verb took me a long time to accept. I still don’t much like it but what’s a girl to do in this case?
I like the article. I’m going to email it to all the grumblers who say English is being destroyed
Do Germans verb?
I verb all the time, mostly for comic effect, but sometimes just for convenience. English is such a crazy language; it’s amazing it’s become such an essential world-wide communication bridge.
I love verbing! It’s been going on for centuries. Change is a part of language. Whenever I hear the “grumblers,” as Jodie called them, complaining, I want to hand them a copy of Chaucer in the original Middle English. I’ll admit though, there’s one caveat to my enthusiasm for verbing: Verbing should fulfill a need, not replace a perfectly good English word. The introduction in recent years of “gifting” is particularly infuriating. We’ve got a word for that: giving. It’s a perfectly fine old word that everyone has used until advertising folks decided to jazz* things up
*jazz–a verbing I do like!
I’m sure I do and I probably verb French words while talking English a well. Just to make things more interesting.
On a different topic… You remember when you were talking about the use of “she” or “he” as neutral pronouns, you said that you had read that there seemed to be a trend in academia to use “she”. I have kept my eyes open for such instances. Today, in a special leaving cert issue a male poet wrote about “the poet” and used “she”. Also, in a literary theory book I was reading (I think it was The Author by Andrew Bennett), “she” was used. I still find that strange; it’s not neutral enough, but it’sa nice change.
Jodie, heh, oh yes, do! I think one of the best things about English is how it is constantly changing.
sshaver, not being much of a German speaker I can’t say for sure. But since German is such a highly inflected language if they do verb it probably isn’t very often.
Daphne, heh, verbing is good for the comedy, you got that right!
Connie, I agree that if there is a perfectly good word that should be the preference over creating a new one. But I must admit, I do find “regifting” fills a nice niche. And oh yes, jazz as a verb is excellent!
Em, verbing in two languages at the same time, now that’s something! And very interesting observations you’ve been making about he and she esapecially since it appears that men have been using it. I’ve noticed in the law school where I work “he” is still the usage of choice but in my library school stuff I’ve since noticed it gets switched up a lot and “she” seems to be deliberately chosen sometimes for situations that are typically male, like computers and the like.
Language can be so malleable–it’s fun to see how it changes and the things that can be done with it. I expect I’m verbing quite often without even realizing it!
Heck yeah! I’m always asking my friend if we’re yogaing. So much more fun than the more formal are we going to yoga.
One of the beauties of English is its flexibility. I’m a gerund lover myself, so that must mean I prefer nouning verbs I suppose.
My two cents – Germans do verb – they have come up with the horrendous verb “smsen” (pronounced z’mzen with soft z’s) – which is their “to text”, as they use “SMS” as the noun rather than “text message”. It’s ghastly.
“To action” is my most loathed verb-age. But apart from that, I’m a regular verber.
Pingback: Monday Stepback: Why Read?, Verbing, Straw Feminism, and Getting Yelled At | Read React Review: Rethinking romance and other fine fiction