Friday, May 23, 2008

Stop Verbing Your Nouns!

Why do folks have to create new verbs from nouns, when there are perfectly good verbs available? There are nouns that have corresponding verb forms, like toast, made from toasting bread, and dog, as in "dog one's footsteps." But it's becoming increasingly popular to create verbs from nouns. One that I particularly dislike is, "He gifted us salvation." Why not "He saved us?" or "He gave us the gift of salvation?" I suppose an alternate way to say that is "He salvationed us." Doesn't one give a gift? Or does one now gift a gift? Yes, English is a dynamic language that changes, which is it's strength. But is all change good? I'll thought about that.

Another thing: Why do so many restaurants serve "fry chicken," rather than fried chicken, "bake potatos," rather than baked potatos, "slice tomatoes," rather than sliced tomatoes, and "ice tea," rather than iced tea? Me, I like devil crabs.

FOGGY DAY

FOGGY DAY
On the Neuse