One major word-formation process in English is to use the noun itself as a verb to express the action conveyed or implied by the noun, doing this without changing the form of the noun in any way. This direct noun-to-verb conversion or “nerbing,” one of the so-called “zero derivation” processes in linguistics, has been taking place since language began. It has given English such basic action verbs as “eye” to mean “to watch or study closely,” “nose” to mean “to search impertinently,” “face” to mean “to deal with straightforwardly,” “mouth” to mean “to talk in a pompous way,” “elbow” to mean “to shove aside,” and “stomach” to mean “to bear without overt resentment.”
Indeed, rather than come up with a new word for the action that a body part typically can do literally or figuratively, the early English speakers simply made that body part stand for the action itself; and later on, they did the same for tools, machines, and technologies. It has been estimated that by this process, something like one-fifth (about 34,000) of all rhe estimated 170,000 English verbs today had been formed from nouns.
Nerbing or direct noun-to-verb conversion is tempting as it can make what we say more forthright, concise,
and contemporary, but we can prevent it from becoming a harmful syndrome by using clarity and aesthetics
before adopting particular nerbs in our professional and personal vocabulary.
Creating verbs this way, which is facetiously called “nerbing” by some language observers, For instance, rather than saying “She made a catalogue of the books,” we can use the noun “catalogue” as the verb itself, knock off the verb “made,” and say “She
catalogued the books” instead. In the same token, rather than saying “The wealthy couple served as parents for the orphan until she reached legal age,” we can use the noun “parent” as the verb, drop the verb “served,” and say “The wealthy couple
parented the orphan until she reached legal age.” A bonus in both cases is that aside from saving on words, the language is enriched by a new verb—a “nerb,” a synthetic term that we will now use here simply for convenience.
Traditionally, jobs and the professions and occupations have been among the most prolific generators and users of English nerbs: “He
mentored the student in the art of debating.” “She
liaisoned with media for an entertainment company.” “He
engineered the merger of the two companies.” “The unscrupulous accountant
doctored the corporate books.” “The government legal counsel secretly
lawyered for the powerful political family.”
Scientific, medical, and manufacturing processes have also tended to produce a generous share of nerbs: “We
centrifuged the donor’s blood to harvest stem cells for the leukemia patient.” “The laboratory technician
chromatographed the mixture for possible contaminants.” In this latter type of nerbs, the name of the machine is directly converted to a verb that describes its action, streamlining what would have been a longer phrase built around the verb “use” (as in “They used a centrifuge to harvest stem cells for the leukemia patient.”).
During the past few decades, of course, advances in information technology and computers became the richest and most frenetic source of nerbs. Totally new verbs grew out directly from the names of such modern technologies as the telephone, photocopier, fax machine, and e-mail. Thus, practically all English speakers now use such highly efficient nerbing shortcuts as “They telephoned [phoned] me just now,” “She photocopied the contract,” “My assistant will fax you the document tonight,” and “I’ll e-mail you the file tomorrow.”
The developers of these new technologies themselves have been prodigiously creating nerbs to describe new technical procedures and processes: “You must
firewall your computer to protect your system from hackers and spammers.” “Please refer to this manual when
architecting your new portal server-based dynamic workplace.” Management and industry have likewise been riding on this trend by turning such nouns as “conference,” “leverage,” “impact,” and “office” into verbs that some grammarians find deplorable, as in “They’ll
conference out of town next week” and “She now
offices at home for convenience.”
Some language observers fear that direct noun-to-verb conversion has become such a serious syndrome in English, one that promotes confusion instead of understanding among its users. As Sir Kingsley Amis, the late English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher, had observed about the phenomenon, “There are times when this sort of verb seems to be growing too fast for comfort, and one suspects that now may be such a time…[Such verbs] may be quicker to say, but then cutting your arm off will reduce your weight faster and more irreversibly than any diet or exercise.”
It’s highly unlikely that the nerbing syndrome can be stopped, though, but we can at least help prevent inappropriate nerbs from swamping English by using usefulness and aesthetics as our criteria for evaluating nerbs before using them ourselves. This way, only those that foster brevity as well as accuracy and clarity to language can survive and become welcome entries to the English lexicon.
This essay, which forms Chapter 99 of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge,
first appeared in my weekly column “English Plain and Simple” in The Manila Times
,©2009 by the Manila Times Publishing. All rights reserved.Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times
:The nerbing or noun-to-verb conversion syndromeNext week:
Handling pronouns with unclear antecedents (August 29, 2024)
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