Further to JD's mention of ruggedise (ugh!), today a writer came with "diarise", meaning to note a date in a diary. Fortunately those nice people who compile the Oxford English Dictionary confirm that diary is a noun which has, thus far at least, escaped being 'verbed'.
In fact "verb" is offered in the OED only as a noun so officially, at least, verb has yet to be verbed. But while the word has yet to force its way into the dictionary the practice (or in this case practise?) is widespread.
Is this a sign of a vigorous, evolving language, or simply a reflection of lazy thinking and lazy writing? I suspect the latter. This magazine, at least, is definitely not ready for verbisation, though the OED does list "verbalise" as "excessive or empty use of language"... which seems to say it all.
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8 comments:
I'm strangely fond of the (almost certainly entirely made-up) verb "to trouser".
As in "I was walking down the road and found a fiver. I immediately trousered it before anyone spotted me".
Under normal circumstances I'd call this an Americanism, but surely then it would have to be "to pant" - which I believe is already taken.
Thank God that the OED is standing firm on the 'diarise' issue. 'Ruggedise' was shocking enough, 'diarise' is an example of lazy language. In my opinion, anyway.
Somebody told me they were going to "agenda [the topic discussed] for tomorrow's meeting", and asked if I had any objection. I did say that I objected to the use of agenda as a verb... could this be the new diarise?
I am so glad to have found confirmation that my manager is clearly wrong about "diarise" being a word. Whilst I knew what she meant, as did all of our "team", and not wishing to belittle my manager (who incidentally is less qualified than me - grrr...) I pointed out that "diarise" was almost certainly not a word. Now I feel like some sort of anal dweeb who has gone to (any) length - just to be right! Yours smugly...
Converting nouns into verbs is a hallmark of English - especially since it's lost the bulk of its inflectional markings. I picture people sitting around grousing "What's all this about fielding an army? In my day we put the army into the field, thank you very much!" And now people are complaining about someone attempting to make use of a suffix whose function is to create verbs!
I have to say that I'm happy with the verb 'diarise'. Not least because it is (somewhat surprisingly!) The Engine Room's top keyword, according to Google Analytics, and has been for nearly two years.
Anyway, you might be right about the OED and 'diarise', but if you look for the proper English spelling, 'diarize' it's there:
diarize, v. intr. To write a record of events in a diary. Hence {sm}diarizing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
I've just checked and the Concise OED (10th edition) gives both spellings: "diarize (also -ise)"
I'm going to use it before the world ends. Excellent blog BTW (found it via Google when checking the spelling).
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