Verbing: the Process of Turning Nouns into Verbs

Verbing words is becoming more common than ever these days and has created quite a flurry of argument among grammar geeks. There are those who defend the process the next natural step of a word's development and there are those who condemn it as abusing the language. So what is the big deal with verbing? Why does it annoy some people so much? When is verbing acceptable? Why can’t Microsoft Word figure out what we are trying to say?

Today’s teenagers are commonly blamed for creating the verbing issue. While verbing has certainly increased drastically in recent years, verbing is a process that snuck into our language a long time ago. Let’s look at some verbified words that have been around for a while:
· She is hosting a party this week.
· Brittany medaled in swimming.
· He eyed the food suspiciously.
These words are not argued about, but they are still a result of verbing. The most controversial words tend to be only recent words that are a result of new technology, laziness, or inconsistency.

Lots of verbified words are based off of technology. When we create new things we need new words to explain their function. Some of these words are well established – we can microwave our dinner, vacuum our floors, email our friends, and fax something to our boss. Newer words that were verbified in the last few years began the recent verbing craze. The most famous example is google. Instead of using the Google search engine or searching for something on Google we can simply google it. We can also text and photoshop.

Verbing becomes a problem when people are not consistent with how they change the noun. Look at the word taser. When I get hit with a taser, have I been tased, or tasered? Did he tase me, or taser me? Words like this need to get worked out so that we can know which version to use. The important thing here is consistency – if you are writing a paper or an article and you are not sure which version of the word to use, pick one and stick with it.

Verbing is at its most controversial when ordinary words are changed. These words are often verbified because of laziness and a desire to cut corners. The word that seems to cause the most people to cringe in horror at its verbification is impact. Impact does not mean “to affect” but it is often used as if it does (the only thing that can be impacted is a tooth).
· Traditional way: The recession will have an impact on our spending.
· New, verbified way: The recession will impact our spending.
The biggest objection to verbing these words is that there is often already another word that has the same exact meaning. In the previous example I could have said the recession will affect our spending. Some nouns are chopped apart when turned into verbs, and others just sound objectionable. Here are some examples of words that have been sloppily verbified:
· He gifted me his favorite watch. Why not just say gave?
· Sally is authoring a book. Why isn’t Sally writing a book?
· I don’t want him to suicide. Here commit should be used in tandem with suicide; leaving it off sounds uneducated.
· Michael guested The Daily Show. Here someone used hosted as a model. We have gone a long time saying was a guest on and it has not killed us yet.
· We must incent him to study. Here someone seems to have taken incentive and worked their way backward. There are many words that could be placed here instead to create the same meaning, like motivate, encourage, and persuade.

So what is the final verdict on verbing? Verbing is largely an opinion issue and will remain a popular discussion for some time. I find verbing perfectly acceptable when using it to describe the function of an item. There is no word to express the function of an item, so the name of the item itself is used. The English language is constantly evolving, and here verbing fills a need. Googling makes perfect sense to me as a practical replacement for using the Google search engine to find something on the internet. But I do object to randomly verbing nouns on a regular basis. There needs to be a legitimate reason to change an ordinary word. Most of the time there are other words already in existence that are a better choice, and verbing often has the unintended effect of confusing the reader/listener. Verbing can sound unprofessional, and I recommend avoiding it in anything other than informal writing.