A few months ago I was teased for using "office" as a verb, as in, "I office on the 13th floor." But creating a verb out of a noun is an ancient and honorable process. I give you this etymology:

masturbation - 1766, from Mod.L. masturbationem, from L. masturbari, altered (probably by influence of turbare "to stir up") from *manstuprare, from manus "hand" + stuprare "defile."
but masturbate is first recorded 1857.

I've got to believe there are hundreds of verbs-created-from-nouns. Examples and comments?

I have already posted this elsewhere but will repeat it here for the benefit of those who are perhaps unaware of this basic fact.

"In English there are no nouns that cannot be verbed"!

Of course, whether such "verbed nouns" are better than the "true" verb that probably aready exists is another story...

Richard English

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Originally posted by Richard English:
I have already posted this elsewhere but will repeat it here for the benefit of those who are perhaps unaware of this basic fact.

"In English there are no nouns that cannot be verbed"!

Of course, whether such "verbed nouns" are better than the "true" verb that probably aready exists is another story...

Richard English

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This is of course in principle true as any word can be used with any function

I can make sense by using adjectives as verbs

I've greened the wall instead of "I've painted the wall green";

verbs as nouns

I like a good eat rather than I like a good meal;

nouns as adjectives

Today's a library day rather than Today I'm going to the library.

I wouldn't want to condemn new coinages but I have to say that I am generally against the "verbing" of nouns or indeed the "adjectiving" of verbs or the "conjunctioning" of adverbs or whatever.
Where does it end.

When you say "I office on the fifth floor" the meaning is relatively clear.

What if I choose to say

"Every Thursday I bookcase."

Richard's assertion that all nouns can be turned into verbs certainly allows this but what can it possibly mean?

Does it mean that on Thursdays I put my books back onto the bookcase ? Perhaps it means that I am a carpenter and I reserve Thursdays for building bookcases. Maybe it means that on Thursdays I stand in the corner and people pile books on top of me. Who can say ?

The question to ask - as with life in general - isn't "can it be done", it's "should it be done".

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

[This message was edited by BobHale on Fri Jan 3rd, 2003 at 8:14.]

Good point, Bob.
I say it is "should" be done if it is understandable. I see no problem with saying, "I office on the 13th floor", though "My office is on the 13th floor" is just as good, I suppose. Still, it makes sense so why worry about it? I hate to see the logogogues here logomachizing. (Love that online Grandiloquent Dictionary!)

My question, how so you know if you are verbifying a noun or nouning a verb, or if both are allowable?

I took a shower yesterday.

I showered yesterday.

In these two sentences meaning basically the same thing, have I done this? Are these two sentences recognized by all as the same thing? I keep going back to shufitz's example of office and hearing "I office on the 13th floor" still sounds extremely strange to me.

(Ok, is it shufitz' or shufitz's in this case? I know it doesn't end with an "s" but it still sounds like one!)

As I have said many times previously, it matters not how the word ends, the rule for creating a passessive is the same.

The dog; the dog's bone; the dogs' bones

The boss; the boss's office; the bosses' offices

The fez; the fez's colour; the fezzes' colours

The studio; the studio's rent; the studios' rents

The Aga; the Aga's fuel supply; the Agas' fuel supplies.

The only thing that surprises me is how people manage to get this wrong!

So of course, it's Shufitz's for the possessive

Richard English

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So of course, it's Shufitz's for the possessive

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R.E., I know you're only doing this since I promised that I was finished with this ridiculous subject! PLEASE!! PUL-E-E-E-E-ZE, Give it a friggin' break!!!

Morgan, no, it is NOT "of course, Shufitz's for the possessive." It COULD be, if you chose it to be, and it WOULD be if you were a stuffy old Englishman with a pedantic two-by-four up your butt, but it doesn't HAVE TO be, particularly if the following noun began with an S or a Z sound. So:

Shufitz's posings = correct
Shufitz' postings = acceptable by a small yet growing percentage of writers (Yes, mainly us ignorant Yanks)
Shufitz' sex life = acceptable and even, to many, desirable (the apostrophe, not the sex life) to those upon whose ear that succession of S sounds would grate.

Is R.E. totally wrong? No, he is not.
Have I been totally wrong in the past? Yes, it grieves me to admit, I have. My favorite example "the boss' desk" turns out, upon further delving into several grammar texts, to be incorrect. It is, after all, "the boss's desk" and I humbly apologize to R.E. for being so incorrect at the top of my voice (2 points for the first one to identify that reference and my money's on B.H.) on this point. I was misremembering the example "the boss' secretary" from one of the aforementioned texts which was listed as an acceptable alternative to "the boss's secretary" which is just too S-filled for the average semi-pedantic Group Two American.

This, I promise, will be my last posting on this subject, assuming of course that R.E.'s last will be just that as well. If nothing else, let's just agree to disagree and get on to other more enriching dialog.

Oh, and back to "officing"?

I believe that the verbification of any noun carries more weight if a similar verbification (or seeming verbification) of a similar noun already has been accepted into the language. In this case, I would suggest the transition of the noun "nest" to the verb "to nest" would open the door for the similar "office" to "to office" transition.

In fact, Kalleh, when you say that you "office on the 13th floor" I get a mental picture of you at a desk happily sitting amidst a pile of twigs and sticks.

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
and it WOULD be if you were a stuffy old Englishman with a pedantic two-by-four up your butt,

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Funny, I've just looked at RE's newly-added picture and I can't see a...

...never mind.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

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It is, after all, "the boss's desk" and I humbly apologize to R.E. for being so incorrect at the top of my voice (2 points for the first one to identify that reference and my money's on B.H.) on this point.

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Positive, adj To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Sorry, Morgan, but I was first. By several months.

Uh.....how could you have posted an answer to a question in October if the question wasn't posted until today? Are you psychic?

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Uh.....how could you have posted an answer to a question in October if the question wasn't posted until today?

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Laughing here. Morgan, if he'd asked a question, I indeed couldn't reply to it before it was posed. But notice that CJ offered "2 points for the first one to identify that reference". I identified it in October; you identified it in January.

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Positive, adj To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

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And Hic, I'm sure you are positive in your assertion that you were first!

oh oh!

Which brings to mind a favorite piece of dialog from the old and highly revered show "All in the Family":

Archie: Only a fool is positive about anything!
Michael: Are you sure about that, Arch?
Archie: I'm positive!!

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In fact, Kalleh, when you say that you "office on the 13th floor" I get a mental picture of you at a desk happily sitting amidst a pile of twigs and sticks.

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Just to stick my nose in here from betwixt the "twigs and sticks".

I had a very sobering experience this weekend that I wasn't going to share on this board because I know everyone is sick of the apostrophe posts. Yet, I can't bear to keep this bottled up. I spent some time in the book store looking up apostrophe rules in the "Chicago Style Manual" (why I did that is beyond me!) The only exceptions to the rule for words ending in "s" were "Jesus" and Moses". But--they gave one time when you would use an apostrophe for a plural (not possessive, mind you) word. If you are writing about a plural word using quotations, you should use an apostrophe. For example, if you were to say, "Put the word 'book's' in the list"--you should use an apostrophe. However, if you were to say, "Put the word books in the list"--you do not use an apostrophe.

Just thought I'd throw that in--s orry!

Although I don't have access to a copy I'd be willing to bet that the CMOS is correct in what it says - but that its explanation is poor. The example, as you have given it, does not make their explanation clear.

When quoting words in another passage, then it is in order to put them in parenthesis by using quotation marks, so as to avoid confusion.

So, in the sentence, "...How many books can you see?" we could be talking about books on a shelf or in a room. However, if we wanted to check a child's understanding of English we might ask it to pick out a word from a passage and we could say something like, "...How many 'books' can you see...?" Or of course, any other word (even book or book's or books').

There is, though, no necessity to pluralise or apostrophise the word simply because it's been quoted in another passage.

Richard English

So, uhhh...who gets the two points?

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masturbation - ... from manstuprare ... "

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Here's an obscure synonym. Now I see where it came from.

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Originally posted by Morgan:
So, uhhh...who gets the two points?

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In this case, the official judges' ruling is that the two points go to Kalleh.

No complaints, please. Life is unfair.


(Woo-Hoo! My 300th post!
700 more plus two verifiable miracles and I get to apply for sainthood!!)

Now that my identity as Kalleh's spouse has been revealed, I draw your attention to CJ's prescient post of the 4th:

"Shufitz' sex life = acceptable and even, to many, desirable"

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Originally posted by shufitz:
Now that my identity as Kalleh's spouse has been revealed, I draw your attention to CJ's prescient post of the 4th:

"Shufitz' sex life = acceptable and even, to many, desirable"

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