One of our charges has a habit of 'verbing' – using a noun as a verb. We don't object on principle; after all no one objects to gerunds, which are verb participles used as nouns. Recent examples dropping into the engine room include the eye-watering 'professionalising' and the less painful 'depolluting', both of which took the place of relatively clumsy clauses.
But just to keep us on our toes, yesterday the same writer came up with "a view with which we would confer".
Writers. Can't leave with 'em; not allowed to bury them under the patio.
1 comment:
Not sure that 'depolluting' is an example of verbing – 'to pollute' is a verb, after all. I guess that 'depollutioning' would be a better example!
'Professionalising' is also interesting because it forms a verb from an adjective, rather than a noun. I suppose it is still verbing though.
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