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I hate the noun-ification of verbs. Specifically Ask and Spend.
The one that causes RAGE in me is "my Ask is" or "the Ask is".
Ask is a VERB. You have a Request or a Question.
I now say something any time I hear that.
Don't care how far above me the person is on the corporate diagram.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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MarkTJohnson wrote: I hate the noun-ification of verbs.
Is that better or worse than verbing the nouns?
I love the flexibility of English language where almost everything can be a verb or a noun. And if you don't have a noun at hand you can take an adjective to better your chances of saying what you want. Even a lowly preposition can do the job - "turn" has almost as many meanings as prepositions are.
Mircea
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Gerund Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster[^]
Verbification of a noun is officially part of the how the English language works. Has been for a long time.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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Hmm, I googled a bit and seems learning about gerund can be fun. Verbing a noun and using the gerund are two entirely different things. English might not be my first language but I know it fairly well.
Mircea
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Yes, nouning verbs and verbing nouns has been a feature of English for centuries. I have been binge listening to an addictive podcast series “History of English Podcast” and there have been countless examples demonstrated where due to Norse, French, Latin, and Old German influences, verbs came to be used as nouns and nouns as verbs. I am on hour 135 of 159 episodes that have been released over the past few years. The excellent podcaster is up to about 1569.
I cringe when someone queries “What is your ask?” I want to respond with “here is my ask…gift me your tell”.
Google Docs offers to correct “gift” to “give” above. Extreming, if you gift me a present, should I present you with a give in return? Google wants to correct those nouny-verby words also.
I am not the only person offended with “gifting”. In a recent Atlantic article, Megan Garber describes word aversion in “Gift is not a Verb”. She offers a history of “gifting”.
'Gift' Is Not a Verb - The Atlantic[^]
She not only geeks with a Google NGram view of “gift” mis-usage since 1800 with its exponential explosion in the 90’s, but she nerds with a great Seinfeld clip on “Regifters”.
"Gifting" is what you do when gifts are things you check off a list, trudging between Williams-Sonoma and Bath & Body Works in search of that perfect gift certificate.”
The next time someone mis-uses “ask” in a meeting, assignment them to status you on their progress in ridding their dialog with improper use of “ask”.
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Ask in bid-ask spread gives rise to What's the ask[ing price]? But as a synonym for question? Gross.
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I’m sure I would have misheard “bid-ask” as “big a**” and would’ve been asking them to repeat it.
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Fortunately, we still have one word that can be used as Adverb, Adjective, Noun, Verb, etc. I learned the proper usage in the service back in the '50's.
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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Go forth and multiply?
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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Is "verbification" self-descriptive? Let me google that...
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One that grinds my gears is "Please revert" meaning please reply.
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If someone asked me to please revert I'd revert my latest code changes
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We are currently moving databases from one environment to another. We have automated the process to include moving the database back to its original location if needed. The guy who built that part even went as far as to think about "What if they decide to move it over to the new location again?" So he built into the code the logic for, and this is what he called it, "Rereverting" the database.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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When I was a lad "alternate" was pronounced "alt-er-nate" and meant 'to switch back end forth between two options'.
It seems to be used as a replacement for alternative in North America. I always find that odd.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Alternate shouldn't be used in place of alternative unless there are only two of them.
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As far as I can tell (in NA anyway) "alternate" is officially both a noun and verb.
Verb - Occurring or succeeding by turns
Noun - One that substitutes for another
Seems official rather than regional slang or misuse.
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It's also an adjective as in "alternate facts"!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Yeah, no, it depends on context. Maybe kinda time-sensitive.
There may be several alternatives until a choice is made and then you have decided on an alternate.
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I tend to pronounce the verb with a “nate” ending which rhymes with number eight and the noun with a “nit/net” ending.
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Brings back memories of a high school sports cheer:
What do we got?
We got a lot!
We got a team that's Red Hot!
(We were a very sophisticated group of students back in the early 1970's. )
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You should hear Virgin Mobile's robo-voice. It seems to target British pre-teens.
/ravi
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Be thankful that their target demographic isn't Valley girls!
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