Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Well... I'm all for laziness when it's useful, and fewer syllables is always more useful than more, as far as that goes. That doesn't mean I sanction all such shortcuts.

Back-constructions that turn a noun or adjective into a verb are fine, in my book, as long as we don't already have such a verb. For that reason I abhor "reverencing" someone when we can already "revere" him. But there seems to be no obvious alternative to "disrespect", so after a long resistance I gave in to that one. I totally agree with you on "action" and "socialize", but "calendar" sounds like a winner. For some reason I haven't yet reconciled myself to "task" as a verb, but it seems to be a lost battle no matter what I decide.

What I'm getting at, I think, is that I'm unmoved by the "laziness" argument; if that's the only one you have, then I take it simply as an admission that the new construction is both clear and shorter. Come up with another one and I may agree with you.

I didn't mention it in my last post, but I'd never heard "socialize" in the wild, never even knew it existed except, of course, in the intransitive sense. But just this week I heard it at work for the first time!

And yes, it was horrible.

Shelterdogg said:

I'm reminded of the comment in Paul Fussell's book: "Class," that in our society, the MORE syllables, the more high-falutin' the word appears to be and therefore the more esteemed the speaker is supposed to be. Thus, "libraries" became "resource centers." "Colleges" become "universities." "Trying" becomes "efforting."

"Rascal" becomes "rascallion."

lease forgive my imerfect selling. I apear to have omitted a 'p'.

stevenz said:

I am foursquare behind Martha on this one. It's a disgusting word, no matter how many people use it. And it IS lazy. In fact, many new word abominations have emerged out of either laziness or bombast – the need to sound important. Many of these come from the business world which never saw a fad it didn't love. Some words I would put in this category:
Action: "Would you action this by the end of the day?" i.e., "work on" or "complete"
Calendar: I'll calendar that meeting for him." i.e., "I'll put it on his calendar."
Task: "Jane was tasked with that report." i.e., "Jane was asked to prepare that report."
Socialize: "Socialize this with other departments." i.e., "show it to them"
(There are plenty more.)

Jane being tasked sounds much more impressive than just being asked, for both her and her manager.

These are all shortcuts, being one word to substitute for more prosaic, but lengthy, formulations. (Or, for more short words.) In other words, LAZINESS.

I'm what some people call a Brit, although I'm actually an Englishman. For decades now I've been wincing at what people in America have been doing to my language. (where's the smilies? I need a smiley for 'tongue-in-cheek' before someone crocks me.) Verbing nouns is one thing. In fact, now I've been sprayed with it for all these years, I have begun to think it can be quite creative and fun.

But there's a darker side to this. For a long time I've turned to the Oxford English Dictionary as a safe port in the tumultuous seas of English-language confusion, and regarded Merriam-Webster as a kind of  linguistic  minefield where, more often than not, I'll find myself surrounded by nouned verbs, rubbers that can't erase, normalcy that's not normal, # called the 'pound sign' instead of this   £  and pavements that are in the middle and not at the edge of the road. Here there be monsters.

But I was filled with admiration of late. I stumbled across an online snippet by some spokesgender representing that apple-pie bastion of American wordage, Merriam-Websters and – quod he – . . . blah blah "corruption due to the ignorant abuse of language." Unquod. I'm sure part of it is sheer (sic) I-give-a-sh*t laziness. The other part is utter (sic) I could care less. Otherwise known as ignorance.

Respect, dude, to the MW people.

If the repository of all corruption is now protesting, then I reckon that English (mis)usage is really getting out of hand

The proof's in the pudding. A cup of piping tea. Nodding one's head negatively. I could care less and you either, probably.

Me? I'm still working out the semantic between meeting someone and meeting with them. But it looks like there's yet hope!

(Although to touch back onto your thrust – the other day I did come across "to moneytarize" something – meaning to sell it. Sigh.)

R

I was surprised to hear that the most annoying word of 2011 was "whatever." I was certain  it would be "efforting." I almost dropped a podcast the other day when one of the sportscasters on it used the word more than once. It was as though he'd just discovered the most wonderful new thing to say.