Questions tagged [verbing]
This tag is for questions about verbing, a type of conversion (or functional shift) in which a noun (or another non-verb) is used as a verb or verbal.
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Is the verb usage of "ladle" considered verbing?
She ladled water instead of soup...
In this sentence, is "ladled" considered verbing or was it a regular and real verb before?
I know informal English allows things like: "I'll ...
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Burritoise Vs Burrito?
I was explaining something using an analogy with burritos. If I apply the same burrito analogy to other examples, am I Burritoising those examples or Burritoing them?
By analogy, say you were banned ...
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Homeschooling in a daily routine
Can I use “ homeschooling “ to refer to daily activity of teaching my children. For example ( by 3.00 p.m I must have finished homeschooling my kids)?
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Can "brain" be used as a verb [closed]
tv commercial for a brain supplement asks, "Would you like to brain better?"
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Can the word "desk" be used as a verb?
I saw the word desk used, according to my thinking, as a verb in a sentence, and I was wondering if this usage is correct or if it was an error from the authors.
You can find the sentence here, at ...
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When a proper noun is converted into a verb, should it be capitalized? [duplicate]
If a proper noun (e.g. Google) is converted into a verb (e.g. Let me (G/g)oogle that for you), should it still be capitalized when used as a verb? I recognize that English has no such concept as a "...
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Is there a word for making a neologism by adding an "em" prefix to nouns or adjective?
I am a trusted critic of a friend's writing. I have noticed an (admittedly obnoxious) habit they have of "creating" new words by adding the "em" prefix to nouns or adjectives, like empurpled.
For ...
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Using the word "summer" as a verb with "I" as subject
As per online Dictionary summer means
noun
the warmest season of the year, in the northern hemisphere from June to August and in the southern hemisphere from December to February.
Eg: "...
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Can a noun can be used as a verb for an idiom?
Is there really an idiom called "don't playground with us" which is similar to don't mess with us? I often found slang in movie/series that a noun can be used as verb also like "Let's chair him up" or ...
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Should we adopt "close shot" as a verb in casual writing? [closed]
This question inevitably invites the controversial subject of verbification, but I wish a finer discussion on its possible benefits and drawbacks. My limited vocabulary perhaps has not alerted me to a ...
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What does the verb "architect" mean? [duplicate]
Here is a quote: "x Consulting Group provides senior consultants to evaluate, architect and design stable and effective solutions and networks". What more is it that the consultants are doing that is ...
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What is the name of the grammar used in "he returned home drunk" and "they came into the room thinking..."?
There is a problem that I have with these sentences.
He returned home drunk.
and
Many of the candidates came into the room thinking they were just
going to be talking about access to ...
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Can “adulting” be considered a verb, or is it only ever a noun?
I know the word has exploded in popularity in recent times, but I'm not sure how to use it right.
This TIME article considers the word a verb, so does this M-W blog. However, the ODO entry only ...
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Are "to medal" and "to podium" verbs? [duplicate]
I have heard the word medal used as a verb recently by members of the (BBC) Rio 2016 commentary team and on occasion to podium even slipped in - is this a common phenomenon?
Perusal of the internet ...
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Do "Skilling" and "Teaching" have different meanings? [closed]
I'm working on a corporate training project where the project lead insists that we are "Skilling" people (not training them) and we are offering "Personnel Skilling" programs. She insists it's proper ...
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Looking for a word or phrase that describes the "flattening" or "smoothing" of a learning curve
A word or phrase that describes the process of making something more easily comprehensible.
(I would actually like to exclude the 'learning curve' idiom)
Examples;
"How might we make this topic more ...
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Concerning as a verb?
During a conversation, I said "I am not concerning", instead of opting for " I am not concerned".
I figured it would be alright as "I am not hurting" instead of "I am not hurt" is perfectly fine (...
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Boogie Woogie Verbing
I'm writing a caption for a cartoon using the musical genre "Boogie Woogie" as a verb.
Which do you think is the most correct? Which is most clearly understandable?
a) Boogie-woogie-ing
b) Boogie ...
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Infinitive of purpose or "for verb-ing"
The chambers inside the pyramid were closed (to/for) visitors (to clean and repair/for cleaning and repairing).
Which is the correct alternative in both the brackets, and why?
Please explain in ...
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Usage of the word suicide - validity of 'suiciding'
Is 'suiciding' a valid word by itself? I have very rarely come across suicide being used in this form. Mostly, you see it being used with the prefix 'commit' as in 'committing suicide' rather than '...
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"Hello" as a verb
A dictionary says that Hello could be a verb, noun and interjection. I'm not sure I saw it to be a verb though.
Q: Could someone provide an example of 'hello' where it's used as verb. In the meaning ...
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Is the suffix "-ize" particularly productive in the morphological domain of nouns ending in "-nym"?
On a recent question asking if acronymize is a word, a comment caught my attention:
Why bother to acronymize? If I'm going to take such liberties, I might as well just acronym the text.
This ...
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Is there a word for made up verbs that end in "ing"?
One thing I love about English is that verbs can be easily created just by adding the suffix "-ing" and adjectives by adding "-ly".
How would you call this phenomenon?
Examples:
...
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"buying cookies will deliver on our promise" - can I use subject and verb like this?
A bit of context: a couple decided not to spend money on unecessary stuff and they promised that to each other.
Later, one of them says:
I dont believe that buying cookies will deliver on our ...
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"I can command English."
I saw a sentence: "I would like to be a scientist who can command English."
What do you think about usage of "command"? Should we say " ...who has a good command of English."?
Could you please ...
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To "Macgyver" or to "macgyver"?
I recently came across this usage “we Macgyver…” and the use of the upper case caught my attention. I googled the word to see if it is mentioned in the dictionary; Wiktionary gave me this result, ...
user15851
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Is it correct English to turn interjections such as "ah", "oh", "um" "huh", "hem" into verbs?
For example: she ahhed/ohhed/ummed/huhhed/hemmed. Or is this possible only with some interjections?
user15851
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Which nouns can be used as verbs?
Someone told me that the English language is special (compared to German, at least) in the way that every noun could be used as a verb. I think this phenomenon is called supine. Is this correct?
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Cheersing vs cheering [closed]
I have come across the word "cheersing", with an "s", as opposed to what I believe to be the correct form: cheering.
I think it comes from a misguided verbification of the exclamation "cheers!", as ...
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Is the word "Einstein" a verb? [closed]
I know that a lot of people use the word "Einstein" to convey someone as a genius, but I was wondering if Einstein, as a verb, is an official term.
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Can a noun (such as “duct tape”) be used as a verb?
I found the phrase “duct-tape together” in the following sentence of a Washington Post (June 21) article written by Chris Cillizza under the title “Gingrich campaign hit by more departures.” The ...
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Can "snob" be used as a verb?
I commonly see "snob someone off", where the word they should correctly use is snub.
Is using "snob" as a verb forever a no-no? Is it creeping towards accepted usage?
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Is it possible to verb anything other than a noun?
Is it possible to verb anything other than a noun?
Although slightly meta, I noticed that English SE has verbing as a tag, rather than verbing-nouns.
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Should capitals be used when verbing trademarks?
When using a trademark as a verb ("hoovering", "xeroxing", "photoshopping" and "googling"), should it be capitalized or uncapitalized?
Strictly speaking, Google and Adobe are opposed to their ...
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Abbreviations for nouns / noun phrases used as non-nouns
In an answer to another question, steven_desu argued that it was “technically incorrect” to use the word “e-mail” or “email” as a verb because it stands for “electronic mail.”
I do not argue whether ...