That's one of the most important and powerful features of language: its flexibility.
And here's what I love most about it: whoever is trying to tell people for whatever reason what they canNOT do with language, WILL LOSE. And we can all watch them struggle and fight and whine. And occasionally we can join in, because something is dear to our hearts (like the 'correct' usage of the apostrophe is to me), and we cry a little, and in the end it really doesn't matter - to the language. I <3 language. Von: "das ende der nahrungskette" <j...@monochrom.at> An: BAGASCH@LISTS.MONOCHROM.AT Gesendet: Montag, 26. Juli 2010 18:22:06 Betreff: [monochrom] Verbing Nouns (Such as 'Verb') What do these words and phrases have in common? Friend, Google, TiVo, log in, contact, barbecue, unlike, concept, text, Photoshop, leverage, party, Xerox, reference, architect, parent, improv, transition, diligence, host, chair, gift, heart, impact? They've all been declared--by someone, somewhere, whether a usage expert or just a self-appointed language cop--"not verbs." It doesn't matter whether they're useful, interesting, or entertaining as verbs; to many people, if a word began its life as a noun, then "verbing" it (like I did there) is just wrong. This visceral reaction is the motivating force behind the recently popular loginisnotaverb.com , one man's impassioned plea against this kind of verbing. The site's elaborate (and funny) arguments against login's verb status really boil down to a simple denial. "I will repeat the important part for clarity: 'login' is not a verb. It's simply not," he writes. The history of English, however, suggests that the language is remarkably flexible in terms of what can be verbed. Almost any word can be drafted to serve as a verb, even words we think of as eternal and unchanging, stuck in their more traditional roles. It's easy to think of scenarios where "She me'd him too much and they broke up" and "My boss tomorrowed the meeting again" make sense. Link
