Verbifying things ~ The Linguistics Zone

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Verbifying things

Have you noticed that more and more words, which are usually nouns, are suddenly turning into verbs? This is the act of verbification: the creation of verbs from words that are normally other parts of speech.

Practically everyone says "google this" when they actually mean to use the Google search engine to find something.

It's often used in marketing speak, as in: "This will impact sales next year." The more correct way to say it would be "This will have an impact on sales next year." since impact is originally a noun and using it as a verb sounds awkward.

More examples of verbification:

"Do you Sudoku?"
"Let's all {insert product name here}!"

Verbification can be thought of as lazy, as it takes fewer words to get your point across. It's often better to use a different word altogether and avoid the awkward phrasing. In the above example, the word influence could be used instead of impact.

159 comments:

golfwidow said...

This is interesting - what are your views on utilizing the word "contact" as a verb? It originally was a noun only, but I no longer see any grammar guides frowning upon its usage as a verb.

I tend to make up words in my colloquial writing (such as my blog) because it makes me feel more creative. I wonder if Shakespeare did the same, for the same reason.

john said...

I think that it is okay to use "contact" as a verb, it has been used that way for quite a while. Other words, such as "host" were originally nouns only, but then were used as verbs (as in "host a party").

Only those that must make a verb out of *every* possible noun tend to annoy me.

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I remember one time when I was attending this graphic seminar, most of the speakers use "photoshopping" to refer to the act of using photoshop instead of just saying "digitally manipulating".

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Eventually some of these words will actually be widely accepted; I think it can't be helped.

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intresting, would not have thought about it that way myself.

Anonymous said...

I tend to make up words in my colloquial writing (such as my blog) because it makes me feel more creative.

Anonymous said...

Kids make up 2 many words these days.

Anonymous said...

I tend to make up words in my colloquial writing (such as my blog) because it makes me feel more creative. I wonder if Shakespeare did the same, for the same reason.

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Anonymous said...

well this is quite interesting. Probably english is going through a transition phase I think.

Anonymous said...

People are verbifying things in their blog these days. I can see some of the bloggers doing it.

Anonymous said...

What makes more difficult the learning of a new language is no doubt the verbs. Good point.

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Oh man this blog will make all the illiterate people more wiser.

Anonymous said...

I never heard about the act of verbification.But its really nice to got this info.Through this I came across how a noun convert into verb.

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Really easy for some to use lots of verbs when looking for a girl!

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A noun is converting into verb not only in English, but these days it's happening quite often with other languages too.

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Only those that must make a verb out of *every* possible noun tend to annoy me.

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I usually do this specially the phrase, "Google this!". Lol. I thought this is just okay. I even used it in one of my articles. I've also read that phrase on the site NBA.COM. So I thought it was okay to use it. Anyway, thanks for sharing this info! This would help me not to commit this mistake again. Thanks!

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I suppose verbifying nouns and adjectives is becoming a lot more common nowadays although a lot still sound strange to me. For instance, I think it is only recently that 'To verbify' was considered common. Acceptance is always going to depend on context as usual e.g. To tangify would be understood in most contexts but it probably wouldn't be wise to use it in an academic paper.

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