Verbing Weirds Language

Dee's sick. She's got an ear infection and an eye infection. Poor baby. And she HATES to take her medicine so we've got to wrestle with her and piss her off so we can help her to feel better. Unfortunately she doesn't know what's going on. All she knows is she doesn't feel good and Mom and Dad keep pumping this yucky stuff into her mouth.

I was reading some old Calvin & Hobbes yesterday where Calvin talks about "verbing" words and it reminded me of how so many people seem to get weirded out by this. Mostly the critics are english teachers and Dave Barry. However, I saw today that even Wil Wheaton chastised himself for using "blog" as a verb.

But let's think about this for a second. Isn't this a normal progression in the evolution of a language? New words come into use, old words drop from usage, some words have their meanings completely shifted and some words take on new meanings. It's been happening for millenia but now some purists want to draw a line and say, "from this point on the language doesn't change." I think they're just trying to make their jobs easier so they don't have to keep up with a changing language. Hell, even Latin (a supposedly dead language) gets new words added to it occasionally.

Consider the word "shoe." Shoe is a noun that refers to an article of clothing one wears on their feet. A shoe is also a metal rim that is put on the hoof of a horse. Shoe is also a verb that refers to the act of putting a shoe on a horse. So was "shoe" a verb first or a noun? Or did they both come about at the same time? Hard to tell. Webster's says that both words were in use before the 12th century. So that boils down to another chicken and egg question.

Telephone was a noun before a verb. So were box, bottle, pen and tape to name just a few.

Our language, English in case you're wondering, is a living language that changes every year. Feel free to contribute to the evolution of the language by verbing a few nouns. If they end up being a useful addition to the language, they'll stick around by the simple fact that people will continue to use them. If not, they'll simply fall by the wayside.

So TiVo those new episodes of your favorite show, blog your thoughts and text your friends 'cause it's all good.