Writing Grit: Verbing Nouns

I recently wrote a post about how to put fat words on a diet by cutting away the prefixes and suffixes to expose the root. It's kind of like dentistry for language, only slightly less uncomfortable.

Writing this post reminded me of my biggest pet peeve -- an annoyance that I was able to let go of while away from work during my maternity leave, but that I now can't get out of my mind. Like the lyrics of a bad Justin Bieber song, or the sound of balloons rubbing together, whenever I hear this used in speech or spot it in the written word, it grates ever so slightly on my nerves.

I know what you're thinking: "What could possibly be that bad?"

When people use the wrong nouns as verbs.

Before I get into the details of why this irks me, let's take a step back to the basics of nouns and verbs.

Nouns and verbs

A noun is a word that refers to a person, place or thing. For example, dog, ocean, appointment.

A verb is word used to indicate an action, state or occurrence. For example, swim, become, happen.

Tip: Nouns answer the question "What?" Verbs answer the question "How?"

When is verbing a noun OK?

Most of the time. (Also, did you see what I just did there? :-))

Not all nouns-as-verbs (not to be confused with verbal nouns are bad. More often than not, they actually make our writing more conversational and direct -- two things that I happen to love! For example, you might write, "I watered (verb) the plants," instead of "I gave the plants water (noun)." Or "I emailed (verb) the pictures to you," instead of "I sent the pictures to you in an email (noun)."

In these cases, and in many others, the same word can serve as both a noun and a verb depending on how it is used in the sentence. In fact, many words that begin as nouns eventually become verbs, like truck, microwave, tag and needle. This is one of the ways the English language most frequently evolves.

It also works for proper nouns, which are nouns that refer to a unique entity, like the name of a person or business. For example, someone might say, "Please FedEx that document to me," instead of "Send that document to me via FedEx." Or, "Google it," instead of "Search for it on Google."

Why some nouns-as-verbs drive @redhens nuts

I support using nouns as verbs ninety per cent of the time. In fact, there's really only one situation where I am 100 per cent against it, and that's this: When people insist on using nouns as verbs when a verb already exists!

Case in point, I frequently hear my husband say, "Let's solution that tomorrow" during business calls. And each time, I want to shout, "Dude! The word is solve!"

Another example (also from the world of business) is, "Let's parking lot that," instead of "Let's park that."

Other than this, there really isn't a hard and fast rule on when verbing a noun works, and when it doesn't. More often than not, it's a matter of preference and popularity -- you go with what sticks. That's why saying, "Let's coffee!" sounds awkward, and a little bit lazy. But "Beer me!" makes perfect sense.

Personally, I don't like using Facebook as a verb. Every time I hear someone say, "Facebook me!", I imagine them getting smacked in the face with a book. While you picture that, I'll end this post.

Are there any nouns that you hate to see used as a verb? Did you spot any errors in this post? If so, leave a comment. :-)

If you enjoyed this post, resteem, upvote and follow @redhens, and check out some of my other posts on writing:

• Writing Grit: Put Your Fat Words on a Diet
• Writing Grit: Types of Editing
• RedHens Writing Advice: Telling Your Story
• Writing Grit: The Five-Minute Edit
• Writing Grit: Passive vs. Active Voice