Verbing is a common form of etymology and neologism in English, as well as a type of wordplay and a form of anthimeria, in which words other than verbs are used as verbs. Verbing is often done by using nouns and adjectives as participles, though there are numerous other variations. In historical linguistics, etymology is the study of the origins of words. ... A neologism is word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) —often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. ... Word play is a literary technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work. ... Anthimeria (Greek: one part for another) is the use of a word of one class as if it were a member of another, typically the use of a noun as a verb. ... A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... In linguistics, a participle is an adjective derived from a verb. ...

The linguistic term for this process is conversion or Zero derivation. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... In linguistics, zero derivation or, less frequently, null derivation is a derivation by means of the null morpheme or zero morpheme, i. ...

Examples of verbing in the English language number in the thousands, including some of the most common words, such as mail, strike, talk, salt, pepper, switch, bed, sleep, ship, train, stop, drink, cup, lure, mutter, dress, dizzy, divorce, fool, merge, and many more, to be found on virtually every page in the dictionary. Often it is impossible to tell which form arose first. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A British pillar box The postal system is a system by which written documents typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages containing other matter, are delivered to destinations around the world. ... Edible salt is a mineral, one of the few rocks people eat. ... Look up Pepper in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Charleston Hot peppers in varying stages of maturity. ... Electrical switches. ... A double bed A bed is a piece of furniture mainly used for sleeping upon. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Italian barque Amerigo Vespucci in New York harbor, 1976. ... There are various types of trains designed for particular purposes, see rail transport operations. ... The word stop has several possible meanings in the English language. ... The word drink is primarily a verb, meaning to ingest liquids. ... Cup can refer to: A drinking vessel such as a teacup or similar drinkware. ... Lure can refer to: fishing lure Lure, a commune of the Haute-Saône département, in France This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The term dress may refer to either clothing or attire in general a specific type of garment, discussed in the article on skirt and dress This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Dizzy may refer to: The state of dizziness The computer game, Dizzy (videogame) The entire series of computer games, of which the previous is the first: Dizzy series A videogame character from the Guilty Gear series Musician - composer Dizzy Gillespie Baseball player Dizzy Dean British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli This... Divorce or dissolution of marriage is the ending of a marriage, which can be contrasted with an annulment which is a declaration that a marriage is void, though the effects of marriage may be recognized in such unions, such as spousal support, child custody and distribution of property. ... A jester or fool is a specific type of clown mostly associated with the Middle Ages. ... ...

Although verbing is sometimes thought of as an error or solecism, psycholinguist Steven Pinker describes verbing as one of the things that make English English. Indeed, the very act of translating from another language into English is sometimes called Englishing. In linguistic prescriptivism, a solecism is a grammatical or other mistake or absurdity. ... Psycholinguistics or linguistics of psychology is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. ... Steven Pinker Steven Pinker (born September 18, 1954, in Montreal, Canada) is professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author of a number of popular books. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Verbing has a bad reputation with some English users because it is such a potent source of neologisms, which frequently sound odd because they are new. This often happens in colloquial speech, such as telling someone that "I'm going to eBay it", meaning that the person is going to put it for sale on an online auction website. Another is to text someone, meaning to send a text message. The result is often a nonce word, but if the usage sticks it simply merges into the language. To text may sound strange, but to e-mail does not. Verbing is in itself also an example of this, as the word verb started out as a noun. A colloquialism is an informal expression, that is, an expression not used in formal speech or writing. ... eBay Inc. ... Sale is the name of several places: Sale, Victoria, Australia Sale, Greater Manchester, England Sale, Italy (pronunciation: SAH-leh) - in the province of Alessandria Salè, Morocco Sale Marasino (first pronunciation: SAH-leh), an Italian commune in the province of Brescia Sale is also a type of contract for the exchange... The online auction business model is one in which participants bid for products and services over the internet. ... The front page of the English Wikipedia website. ... A received SMS being announced on a Nokia phone. ... A nonce word is a word used only for the nonce—to meet a need that is not expected to recur. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ...

Zero Derivative

In linguistics, zero derivation or, less frequently, null derivation is a derivation by means of the null morpheme or zero morpheme, i.e., changing the function of the word without changing its form. If the derivation changes the word class, it is also called a conversion. Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... In linguistics, derivation is the process of creating new lexemes from other lexemes, for example, by adding a derivational affix. ... A null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null affix (an empty string of phonological segments). ... In grammar, a part of speech or word class is defined as the role that a word (or sometimes a phrase) plays in a sentence. ...

Conversion is very common in the English language, as is illustrated by the conversion from telephone to to telephone, for example. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

More recently, the Tivo corporation has sought to prevent the use of the conversion of the proper noun Tivo to the verb to Tivo (as in: don't forget to Tivo that show). A similar situation has occurred with the company Hormel, in regard to the usage of the term Spam by members of the electronic community. Hormel, like Tivo, is displeased at the extension of the proper noun (that is their copyrighted term) to a common noun, and/or directly to the category of verb. The TiVo (tē-vō) personal video recorder is a consumer video device allowing users to capture television programming to internal hard drive storage for later viewing (called time shifting). TiVo systems function similarly to VCRs, but use non-removable hard-disk storage, and contain much more sophisticated software to record...

Interestingly enough, the search engine Google is very pleased that their term has entered the common lexicon. They are happy that people decide "that they would like to google information."

Quotations

• "Verbing weirds language." Calvin and Hobbes states the negative view.
• "Pork is not a verb." wrote Bart Simpson.

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. ... Bart Simpson Bartholomew Bart Jo-Jo Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. ...

External link

• "Grammar Puss" by Steven Pinker