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Welcome to a new series on this blog, where from time to time I will explore the quirks of communication and language. Nothing too serious - this series is simply a fun and interesting look at the way we have with words.
The Art of Verbing
Believe it or not, verbing is an actual word. It refers to the creation of a verb from another word, usually an adjective or noun. In linguistics, the creation of new words from existing words in this way is called zero derivation.
In past times, you used Photoshop to edit an image. Now you simply Photoshop it. Instead of using Google to search for something, you Google it.
Verbing is a strange phenomenon, but it's not new. Remember when contact was a noun? Yeah, me neither. But it used to be that you would call someone to make contact. Now you just contact them. Some style manuals still insist that this isn't proper language, but apparently they didn't get the memo (or perhaps someone forgot to memo them).
The larger point, of course, is who has the authority to say what is proper language and what isn't? In an age where we are writing our own encyclopaedias and doing our own journalism, is proper language simply what is popularly accepted? Certainly lolcats have their own grammar and syntax, and woe betide the n00b who gets it wrong.
A verb by any other name
Verbing is widespread, but when it comes to any bastardisation of language, as usual, it's the marketing and middle-management types who are leading the charge.
Project managers used to give their projects the green light, now they greenlight them. A workshop used to be something you went to, now it's something you do. So is interfacing, leveraging, architecting, benchmarking, and of course, synergising.
In my opinion, people who get off on this sort of verbing simply prefer making 'action' words as a substitute to taking action, in an attempt to create meaning in an environment where there is none.
Nevertheless, verbing is enjoying an upward trend (it's trending upward), and perhaps that is simply a result of a society which increasingly values brevity in communication above all else.
To verb or not to verb
Is verbing a good or bad thing? I'm not sure that's the right question to ask. Whether it's good or bad...
Verbing is.
If you don't have a problem with the previous sentence, verbing is unlikely to matter much to you. In fact, you probably don't shitgive. If, on the other hand, parts of this post have made your eyes twitch and your brain want to ooze out your nose, verbing is likely to be a worrying trend.
For those who despair over verbing and all it represents, I think this quote says it best, in a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of the famous First They Came poem.
"First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs."
- Peter Ellis (some bloke posting on a Terry Pratchett fan group)
What are your thoughts on verbing? Comment below 
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting... Is verbing a recent trend, or just a continuation of the development of language? Probably the latter, and personally, even as someone who has the utmost respect for language, I'm not so sure it's a worrying trend.
As a print journalist, the rules of language are important, largely, to ensure consistency across pages/titles. Nothing worse than a phrase written one way in one sentence, and written a different way in a following sentence. But the rules can never be black and white; style guides have to be living, breathing documents that change with the development of everyday language.
As writers we are, after all, in the business of comprehension. You can't be that tied to rules if your audience has moved on with its language.
We should, indeed, uphold the tenets of our beautiful language and exercise the most extensive vocabulary we can. Nothing more satisfying than using a word that so perfectly describes what you mean. And that word may not always be in the dictionary...
One of my favourite quotes (courtesy of my much-admired high school English teacher Mrs Collison):
Nice comment Jason. I agree, from a publisher's point of view the chief considerations for the use of language should be consistency and context.
The business of comprehension... I like that. Someone should tell the folks who write product manuals.
As for Mr Lewis' words of wisdom, they may well be helpful in getting through the rather bothersome chapter of my book I'm struggling with.