Noun: a word that is the name of something (such as a person, animal, place, thing, quality, idea, or action) and is typically used in a sentence as subject or object of a verb or as object of a preposition
Verb: a word (such as jump, think, happen, or exist) that is usually one of the main parts of a sentence and that expresses an action, an occurrence, or a state of being
In fact, over time, some nouns have so successfully made the verb transition that we don't even realize they haven't always been verbs: "Stop horsing around." "You can't outfox your mom." "I'll phone you when I get home." "She tried to guilt me into going with her."
Language is organic and is in a constant state of flux. As society evolves, new words emerge. And technology is speeding up this trend: "Is Google headquartered in California? I'm not sure. I'll Google it." "Inbox me." "I'll friend you on Facebook." "Let me bookmark that." "Hey, verbing is trending on Twitter!" Trust me, I get it.
The problem comes when verbing turns nice, decent nouns into awkward, unnecessary verbs. Adding -ed, -ify, or -ize to a noun does not automatically give you a great new word. People deplane. Food gets plated. People have lost jobs when their company rightsized. But here's the thing: Verbing, or what we language dorks call denominalization, is a democratic process. The more we use new words, the more deeply they become ingrained into the English language until we no longer see them as oddities. Through our spoken and written word, we vote these new candidates into office.
So, on behalf of word nerds everywhere, I am asking you kindly -- especially you, corporate America: Please don't vote for these guys.
- Impacting: "Her attitude is impacting everyone in the class." I'm sure this is the layman's way of dancing around whether to use affecting or effecting. Let's clear it up. It's affecting.
- Incentivize: "Leaders must incentivize people to work harder." What's wrong with encourage or motivate or even the long but more language-friendly "give people incentives"?
- Authored: "She has authored three best-selling books." Nope. She wrote them.
- Dialogue: "We'll have a meeting to dialogue about that." You're talking, people, not dialoguing. Your conversation won't be sharper, wittier or more productive just because you call it dialoguing or, even worse, conversating.
- Conference: "We need to conference before that client meeting." No, ma'am. Let's meet instead.
- Monetize: "I need to find ways to monetize this blog." Well, if I had a dollar for every time I have read the word monetize while editing a business publication, I wouldn't have to look for ways to make money anywhere else.
- Architect: "I'm going to architect a plan that will save us thousands of dollars." No, you're not. You're designing, creating or writing a plan.
- Learnings: "In our wrap-up session, we distilled the key learnings from the conference." What's wrong with lessons?
- Leverage: I can't even begin to list the plethora of things I have read that companies are leveraging. As Forbes said, "Meet the granddaddy of nouns converted to verbs. 'Leverage' is mercilessly used to describe how a situation or environment can be manipulated or controlled. Leverage should remain a noun, as in 'to apply leverage,' not as a pseudo-verb, as in 'we are leveraging our assets.'" It's a useless word. Most writers mean "use." "If we leverage our best players, we will win the game." Use them, or put them in the game, or let them play. Just please don't leverage them.
