Verbing: When Nouns Become Verbs

A fixed grammar lets us communicate with a clear, ordered structure we can all understand. Functioning as a GPS for directing our thoughts and ideas, it provides accurate markers and routes for moving our mind’s content into intelligible expressions.

While language is organized to unify understanding, it also can bend and flex to expand intentions of meaning, as well as adjust to the new ways we describe what is familiar.

One such bend and flex is verbing, the use of a noun as a verb. This exchange seems to be only increasing in modern American English, as in the following examples:

That channel now platforms McFarley’s opinions on growing red tomatoes.

I’m really glad that we met. Why don’t you friend me on Facebook?

If Masterson doesn’t readily know the answer, he should just Google it.

In each sentence, an established noun (platform, friend, Google) is conveying an action. Even the word verbing is an example of verbing:

Did they just say I should laptop my article notes? Are they really verbing that?

This tendency to convert speech parts follows natural language evolution. Verbing is a way of keeping English fresh, particularly among younger people. We are especially apt at verbing words that involve current technology and services:

They want to Zoom for the meeting.

Melissa told Adelina to YouTube the discussion.

I can’t talk now, but let’s FaceTime later!

My car’s in the shop. I say we Uber it tonight.

Verbing: It’s Nothing New

Verbing has been built into English for more than 1,000 years. Our modern use has simply made the practice increasingly inventive and obvious.

Signs of verbing appeared in Old English (app. 500–1100 A.D.). It also could be seen in Middle English (1100–1500), when, for example, the noun dark expanded into the verb to darken and the noun rain became a verb to describe the action, to rain.

By the era of William Shakespeare (late 1500s–early 1600s), verbing was thriving:

“Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncles.” — Richard II

“He words me.” — Hamlet

While some might argue that verbing lessens the distinction of English, we can’t escape that verbing is here to stay and will remain as long as its meanings are clear.

Some linguists estimate that more than 20% of English verbs originate from noun-to-verb conversion. Just a few words that began as strictly nouns before becoming well-understood verbs include access, bottle, debut, impact and pressure.

Verbing: More About Why

People turn nouns into verbs for different reasons, some of which we’ve already alluded to. We verbify nouns for:

efficiency and simplicity. Turning a noun into a verb can tighten expressions and make them more direct. Compare let’s iPad our notes with let’s make our notes in our iPads.

flexible expression. Verbing is one of the easiest ways to create new words through common use. Think of the presence of verbs such as Google, Zoom, and message in our daily lives.

adapting with culture and technology. As new tools, trends, apps, and platforms emerge, we can expect more verbing in the future. This is especially true of actions that become indistinct from their brands: “Venmo me,” “We should DoorDash dinner tonight.” 

greater creativity of expression. Verbing lets us be creative and playful with our everyday speech: “I’m done adulting for today,” “I think Lizette is going to ghost me,” “Jack and Jill said they’re going to Netflix and chill tonight.”

While verbing adds breadth and versatility to American English, we also want to be careful about context. Verbing is casual, colloquial usage that may not always be proper in formal communication. As with any other message we share, we should consider our audience.

Similarly, verbing often arises from cultural trends and references, many of which tend to fade as times change. Too much verbing can make new colloquialisms grating and stale and hasten their demise.

Verbing: Ways to Verb a Noun

Nouns have a few different means of morphing into verbs.

Direct Conversion (Zero Derivation): No change in spelling or form

email > I’ll email you the details.

chair > She chaired the meeting.

butter > Can you butter the bread?

Affixation: Adding verb suffixes such as -ize, -ify, or -en

apology  > apologize (He apologized for losing her Taylor Swift tickets.)

beauty > beautify (Sara beautified Stan’s originally garish outfit.)

strength > strengthen (The sales manager believes we can strengthen the numbers.)

Back-Formation: Removing suffixes from nouns

babysitter > babysit (Raj babysat the Abassis’ six greyhound dogs.)

editor > edit (Someone needs to edit Uri’s résumé.)

option > opt (Fans are now opting not to pay $18 for a beer at concerts.)

Functional Shift: Slight change of meaning from noun to verb

book > Have you booked the vacation cruise yet?

ship (vessel) > The delivery was supposed to have been shipped last week.

text > Please advise Enrique not to text about our plans to unload our company stock.

Metaphorical Extension: Shifting of nouns to verbs through figurative meaning

bridge > We need to bridge the gap between the quality of your guitar and mine.

shoulder > Hank shouldered the burden of having to weed the yard.

host > Chenda is hosting the neighborhood block party this year.

You’ll also often notice that simply adding the suffix -d or -ed will change many nouns into verbs: e.g. download > downloaded, paint > painted, task > tasked.

Writing with Meaningful Restraint

The art of writing concerns style and form as much as it does clarity and grammatical accuracy. Technically proper sentences can be operative but uninspiring if not also touched by feeling and flow.

Consider the following pair:

     He fully opened the window and looked at the sunset. It had been a long day. He was ready to put it behind.
     He opened wide the window and gazed at the setting sun, which slowly closed the day he knew he must forget.

The first sentence succeeds in conveying information in plain, short, linear thoughts. The second one puts us in the same spot with the same person doing the same thing, yet it offers more imagery, depth and even mystery, all guided by rhythm and sound.

As writers, we want to spark readers’ minds in interesting, original ways. At the same time, we want to maintain self-awareness and balance. Just as a cake can have too much frosting, so can our writing have an excess of flair.

When we are composing, we should be mindful of whether we are drawing more attention to words than to ideas. Perhaps motivated by giants of literature we have read, we may try to compose our own grand expressions, thinking that real writers aim high.

Unfortunately, until we have practiced and perfected the skills we admire, we can produce sentences such as this one:

     With an iron will forged on the anvil of conviction, the solitary traveler with the aching, calloused, sandaled feet crossed the rolling blanket of desert dunes toward the flaming horizon from which the unforgiving heat like a colossal palm pressed down.

While we may not fault the ambition behind such writing, we can agree it tries too hard. We sense the writer’s inflated excitement that he or she might be starting to sound literary. By focusing on being less “fine,” we could express the same sentence as:

     Feet revolting, will unyielding, the traveler crossed the desert alone, pushing through the pressing heat toward the horizon that had to be reached.

We also want to avoid writing that aims to be “poetic,” particularly if it is clichéd or otherwise unoriginal. Authentic poetry has its place throughout our language when it is shared by those who have mastered the form. For the rest of us, we will serve all (including ourselves) by refraining from phrases such as lips red like the rose, her raindrop tears, eye of night (meaning the moon) or ocean blue like the sky, as well as archaic words such as oft, alas, ere and ’twas.

Let us likewise be wary of too much alliteration, which is the repetition of vowels or consonants in the same line, especially at the beginning of words (desert dunes, opened wide the window). When applied with skilled moderation, it can make writing pleasing and memorable. When unleashed, it can lead to grating passages such as the fate that forged friends from forgotten fields in France.

Art is often driven by passion, and that spirit tends to dislike self-control; rather, it prefers to run freely in releasing thoughts and emotions. We will make a greater mark as writers if we harness its strength in the right ways at the right moments through restraint that shapes technique.

Top 10 Grammar Mistakes in English

Grammar mistakes remain common in daily communication. Even those of us who pay close attention to such matters can still be potentially duped by the occasional sneaky error.

Because grammar mistakes in American English have always been and likely always will be, we thought it’d be fun and informative to review the ones that still tend to occupy the top spots on the list of snafus.

(You might notice you’ve seen many of them before.)

Top 10 Grammar Mistakes 2024

The following inaccuracies populate the trouble roster in no particular order.

1. Dangling modifiers. A modifier is a part of a sentence that describes another part. Because speech doesn’t always have the processing speed to align modifiers perfectly, they will typically be more misplaced when we talk. In our writing, which does afford the time for more thought, they should appear where they belong if we wish to be clear.

A modifier is dangling when it describes the wrong element in a sentence.

Dangling: Never likely to turn down free food, the jumbo-size bag of Doritos was too much for Goose to ignore. (The modifier describes “bag,” which is nonsensical.)

Not dangling: Never likely to turn down free food, Goose could not ignore the jumbo-size bag of Doritos. (The modifier describes “Goose,” which is grammatically accurate and clear.)

Modifiers should always be placed as close as possible to the element being modified.

2. Run-on sentences. A run-on sentence joins two independent clauses either with a comma splice or no punctuation.

Comma splice: The grass is getting long, you should mow it soon.

No punctuation (fused sentence): The payment system crashed paychecks will be delayed by a day.

To avoid such sentences, we need to include markers that clearly identify the independent clauses as either separate or modified by a subordinating clause.

The grass is getting long. You should mow it now. (Periods properly separate the independent clauses.)

Paychecks will be delayed by a day because the payment system crashed. (Adding because makes the payment system crashed a dependent clause that modifies the independent clause.)

3. Homophones. A homophone is each of two or more words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings.

Examples

your, you’re

its, it’s

there, their, they’re

Your really buying a new Porsche?

Sandra’s cat might chase it’s own tail, but mine doesn’t.

Jason said their going to the Dodgers game tonight.

These mistakes will not affect our speech, but they will always stain our writing. Precise and eloquent writers will consider the spellings and meanings of similar-sounding words in order to use the right ones.

You’re really buying a new Porsche?

Sandra’s cat might chase its own tail, but mine doesn’t.

Jason said they’re going to the Dodgers game tonight.

4. Adverb and adjective confusion. At times we might mistakenly interchange adverbs and adjectives.

Examples

I’ve been working real hard on my essay. (adjective)

We better get home quick before the rain starts. (adjective)

Leticia dances good. (adjective)

All of these sentences are incorrect. Adverb and adjective confusion can often result from conversational habits spilling into our written ones. As with homophones, we want to remain mindful of our word choices and types.

Examples

I’ve been working really hard on my essay. (adverb: correct)

We better get home quickly before the rain starts. (adverb: correct)

Leticia dances well. (adverb: correct)

5. Subject and verb agreement. Grammatical accuracy in a sentence requires a subject and a verb that align in number. A singular subject should have a singular verb, and a plural subject should have a plural verb.

Incorrect: The audience are applauding the performance.
Correct: The audience is applauding the performance. (collective singular noun, singular progressive verb)

Incorrect: See that? The alignment of those stars form a smiley face.
Correct: See that? The alignment of those stars forms a smiley face. (singular subject modified by a prepositional phrase, singular verb)

In addition to mastering primary subject and verb agreement (e.g., the leaves rustle), understanding the interplay of verbs with collective nouns modified by a prepositional phrase will further reinforce skill in this area.

6. Subject and object pronouns. Whether in daily conversation, newspaper articles, or movies and TV, the belief that “___ and I” is proper formal grammar in all contexts still often prevails.

Correct grammar places subject pronouns in subject positions and object pronouns in object positions.

Incorrect: Would Aaron like to go to the park with Jerrod and I?
Correct: Would Aaron like to go to the park with Jerrod and me? (The pronoun is the object of a preposition, making it an objective pronoun.)

Incorrect: Me and Ravi would like our burgers well-done.
Correct: Ravi and I would like our burgers well-done. (The pronoun is the subject of the sentence, making it a subjective pronoun. Placing the first-person subject pronoun last also is considered polite, proper form.)

7. Malformed verb phrases. Some verb phrases endure although they still hit left or right of the bulls-eye. Among the most common are must/should/would/could of and try and.

Incorrect: That tool shed must of taken a long time to build.
Correct: That tool shed must have taken a long time to build.

Incorrect: Let’s try and get it done before six p.m.
Correct: Let’s try to get it done before six p.m.

8. Lay and lie. The distinction between these verbs can remain elusive even for those with a firm grip of grammar.

Lie means “to recline” or “tell a falsehood.” It is an intransitive verb, meaning it does not take an object.

Lay means “to place or put.” It is a transitive verb, meaning it takes an object.

Incorrect: The scarf is laying on the bin.
Correct: The scarf is lying on the bin.

Incorrect: I’m pretty sure Barry lay the shovel in the yard.
Correct: I’m pretty sure Barry laid the shovel in the yard.

9. Misplaced or misused apostrophes. Over time the apostrophe has become the all-purpose tool of punctuation. It has served in functions ranging from ownership to plurality, although not always in grammatical ways.

Incorrect possession: Please give the dog it’s bone.
Correct possession: Please give the dog its bone. (Its is a possessive pronoun that does not include an apostrophe. Refer to Grammar Mistake #3 as well.)

Incorrect plural: They gave me five day’s leave because of my injury.
Correct plural: They gave me five days’ leave because of my injury. (The modifying compound noun, five days, is plural, so the apostrophe should appear after the s.)

10. i.e. and e.g. They’re both abbreviated forms of parenthetical statements, and they both originate from Latin. Beyond those similarities, they mean different things that are often confused.

The abbreviation i.e. means id est (“that is to say,” “in other words”), and e.g. means exemplī grātiā (for example). We use i.e. when we want to restate or reiterate we’ve just written. We use e.g. when we want to introduce examples of what we’ve just described.

Incorrect: We should probably eat a healthier meal (e.g., this half-pound cheeseburger is not diet-friendly).
Correct: We should probably eat a healthier meal (i.e. [in other words], this half-pound cheeseburger is not diet-friendly).

Incorrect: This salad needs more veggies (i.e., carrots, cucumbers, green peppers).
Correct: This salad needs more veggies (e.g. [for example], carrots, cucumbers, green peppers).