Is it okay to make a verb out of a noun? Yes! It’s estimated that twenty percent of English verbs started as nouns. Just think of the head-to-toe mnemonic: you can head off a problem, face a situation, nose around, shoulder responsibility, elbow your way into something, stomach a problem, foot the bill, or toe the line. Verbing weirds language. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Verbing Nouns”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hey, Grant, this is Chris from D.C.
Hey, Chris, how you doing? Welcome to the program.
Hi, Chris.
Hey, Martha.
Hey.
So glad to be with y’all.
Delighted to have you here, especially since you said y’all.
I thought that would get to your heart.
We like you already. What can we do for you?
Well, I’m hoping the two of you can provide me with some, I guess, linguistic background on the tradition of what I like to call verby nouns.
So I’ve been in a couple of conversations over the last several months where people have been kind of dismissive of this practice, and usually in the context where a noun is being used for the first time or kind of newly used as a verb, so a word like impact.
And those same people are also then using words like shop or question as verbs, even though I would expect that in the past those words were really started as nouns.
So to me, I mean, I love the adaptability of our language, and I think it’s one of the greatest strengths.
So while, you know, I guess I’m ambivalent about any kind of, you know, specific experimentation with verbing a noun, I’m hoping that with a little tutorial from the two of you that I can kind of be better prepared to defend the practice in general next time this comes up.
Yes, yes, yes.
We can help you with that.
We’re on the same page.
You know, it’s been estimated that some 20% of the verbs in English actually started out as nouns.
No.
Yes, yes.
Yes, and it makes perfect sense.
And this is a practice that’s gone all the way back to Anglo-Saxon.
I mean, this is a really, really old practice.
I know that some people find it fashionable to dismiss these.
But you can look at, for example, Stephen Pinker’s book, The Language Instinct.
And he has this great mnemonic that you can use for having these arguments with your friends.
Because if you just go from head to toe, think about it.
You can head a committee.
You can nose around the office.
You can hand somebody something.
You can stomach my bad puns.
You can eye a problem or face a situation, right?
You can nose around.
Right.
Maybe you can’t ear something, but you can foot the bill and you can toe the line.
I mean, all of those started out as nouns.
And, you know, if your friends are giving you a hard time about it, I’d say phone them or email them.
No, I just say elbow them out of the way and move on.
Well, elbow, that’s another.
Yes, very good.
Actually, knee them in the groin, elbow them out of the way, and then move on.
Wow.
That’s a lot.
Well, it’s funny that you should mention impact because there’s something fashionable about picking on impact as a verb.
It’s kind of one of those pass-along peeves that people hear, and it sounds really vigorous when somebody’s arguing against it, and you’re like, yeah, yeah, impact is a verb, should die.
And they just pick up the argument and run with it for themselves.
But really, like you said, there’s no valid reason why impact can’t be a verb.
Well, that one I picked.
You picked up this negativity from these people who don’t know how English works.
No, I picked it up from the hospital when I was a nurse’s aide, and if somebody was impacted, you ran with an enema.
Okay, you win.
But otherwise, Christopher, I’m with you.
But yeah, just to kind of recap here, verbing nouns and nouning verbs in English is absolutely ordinary.
It’s how we make new language.
It’s a rich source of being more precise.
That’s one cool thing that lets us do.
It lets us say exactly what we need to say without kind of fuddling around with other words that don’t quite do the job.
Yes, and it’s very natural.
And as you said, I can’t remember how you said it exactly, but you said something about the vigor of the language.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I think that is so incredibly helpful.
I’m well prepared next time this comes up.
Awesome.
We’ll link to the sources that we can find that will give you the full printable material that you can present to your colleagues.
So dialogue with us anytime.
Well, I don’t know about that one.
Well, the people you said.
I love how we’re hitting all your boundaries here.
You’re pressing all my buttons.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let’s knuckle down to finish this call.
Thanks, everybody, so much.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
