Verbing nouns
English is a constantly and rapidly evolving language. Its flexibility is astonishing. While this can give speakers and writers of English an enviable degree of freedom, it can make things difficult for us (we?) ‘custodians of language’, otherwise known as editors.
Good, you say. Stick-in-the-mud grammarians need a clip over the ear from the salty tongues of the speakers of everyday English (if you can tolerate that startling mixed metaphor).
But where does experimentation with language stop and gibberish start? A recent article in The Boston Globe tackled the problem of ‘verbing’ nouns. What? Well, when you verb a noun you are – just like it sounds – turning it into a verb.
For example: impact, leverage, access. As in, ‘How will this nuclear explosion impact our bottom line?’
This is very popular in business because it creates the impression that if you are using a doing word, you must be doing something. I find it very annoying, but that’s no argument against inventive language. As ever, if you are clearly understood by your intended audience, you should do it. Just don’t expect it to be pretty.
Having said that, it was good enough for Shakespeare (‘Julius Caesar, I Who at Phillipi the good Brutus ghosted’), and, as we all know, if it was good enough for Shakespeare, that ends the argument, no matter how convoluted his syntax may be.
