I have already made a personal commitment to dialogue with the union about the changing environment we face
Is this an example of 'dialogue' as a verb or just an example of 'commitment to' + noun?
I've never come across the former before, although it is listed in my Concise OED: "v. chiefly N Amer. take part in dialogue."
7 comments:
Sounds like the corporate American jargon word to me.
No way to tell. Though as an American, I'd interpret it as the verb, just because "dialog" is not a noun I'd expect.
I think the "with" after dialogue makes it a verb, but I'm too lazy to site references right now.
I personally wouldn't use it as a verb, but an unambiguous Google search ("want to dialogue") shows that plenty of people do:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=GBp&q=%22want+to+dialogue%22&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=
I'm not sure the 'with' necessarily makes it a verb; it's possible to 'enter into dialogue with' somebody, for example - and that's an example of 'dialogue' as a noun.
I agree with JD. There's nothing about the "with" that makes this more likely to be a verb. In fact I'd say it's almost certainly intended as a noun, simply because that's a perfectly reasonable reading of the sentence, and rather less remarkable.
But it could be a verb, and there's nothing in the sentence itself that can tell us for sure. We'd need to know more about the writer.
I don't know about corporate America, but I'd vouch for this being non profit American jargon. I've come across this before; it's the kind of thing you find annoying at first and then suddenly, you realize that you're saying it all the time.
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