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

I think this is a humorous usage that got into the language, that's all, sort of like "thunk" as the past participle of "think". But even as a joke, naturally you let it go on long enough and youngsters start to think it's valid English.

LOL! Reminds me of a warning my boss passed on to me about two decades ago, to the effect that it'll be a while yet before we'll have really good translation software for a language in which you can say "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana".

the final word on this: it's "thing."

I imagine that if I were to say, "I'll have a think about that," everyone in the room would tilt her head in condescension or temporary confusion. However, if I were to say, "That's just an example of groupthink," everyone would know what I meant. So think is mostly, though surely reluctantly, accepted as a noun -- at least in compound form. (By the way, I am in no way giving approval to use of the word "groupthink"; I don't think that "word" effectively conveys the situation, whether worthy of opprobrium or not, that it purports to convey.)

I think there are times when traditional usage has to go out the window if it means getting more functionality out of the language. When I was in college (history major with a fine arts minor), we would often use verbs as nouns to more fully describe what was happening. In the history TA's office, we would use the the verb 'to book' as a description of going to the library for research.

"what are you doing this afternoon?" "I'm booking until dinner"

In the art building, there were students who used the verb 'to art' to describe that creative zen-like state that some people get into where every action becomes about the creative process.

"I came home and found my room mate had arted all over the kitchen table"
(although I can't verify this, I always suspected the computer science people had some term other than coding to describe the same state)

I know it has nothing to do with that particular turn of phrase, but then I just wanted to put in my $0.02 on the general discussion.