VERBIZING NOUNS

by PhD McGee
Grammar Snob

Let's talk about using nouns as verbs. Sometimes, this works--like with "fork." As a noun, you can say, "I like to use a fork when I eat meat." As a verb, you can say, "I forked that pig in the eye until it fell over dead. Then I had bacon for breakfast."

"Wrench" is another good one. "I used a wrench to fix the pipes." That works. "I wrenched that piece of green bean out of my teeth and flung it across the room." That works, too. It's colorful.

However, some nouns are staunchly nounly and should have absolutely nothing to do with any other word form, especially verbs.

"Messenger" for example. Don't say, "When I messengered, there were no leave-your-bag buildings and I used to get stoned out of my head and jam through the Loop in winter after it just snowed during rush hour on a fixed gear and it was fucking amazing." See, that's bad. Not the inebriated fixed gear in a blizzard part. What's bad is you didn't "messenger," you were a messenger. You either are or you aren't. You don't do messenger. Unless you get lucky at a raging loft party, in which case, check back in a few weeks for my upcoming article on birth control.

Another case of felonious use of verbized nouns: "text." Don't say, "I texted you to pick me up from jail after they let me out, where the fuck were you, you asshole?" See, "text" is a noun, so there's no past tense of it. It's just there, in all its noun glory, a text in the past, a text in the present, a text in the future. You could say, "I sent you a text." Or, better, "I sent you a text message to tell you you're a freak from hell and stop stalking me." Although, maybe you shouldn't be texting a message like that. Maybe you should have your bodyguard Bruno deliver that one in person.