Tags
Australia, Creatve Non-Fiction, Culture, gift, Language, Nouns, Pet peeves, verbs, words, writing
Six years ago I wrote a short piece here about how certain people, and cultural groups, can be characterised by their speech as either verbs or nouns. I thought then that I was a verb. Now I’m not so sure. I compared the English/Australian way of speaking to the American style, concluding the former were prone to expressing verbs as nouns, contrasting the American tendancy to make nouns into verbs.
An example: An American would say “Look at this.” A person of English/Australian persuasion would more likely say, “Have a look at this.” There are numerous such examples. Just think about it for a moment. (Or, have a think about it for a moment…)
The point (or inappropriate generalisation) I was making was simply that linguistically, Americans tend to be more assertive, more pushy, if you will, even in their speech. The English/Australian approach is less direct, more convoluted, in an attempt to not be seen as … pushy. Offer an Englishman a cup of tea and he may well answer “I wouldn’t say no.” Can you imagine an American saying that? Me neither.
I’m not renouncing my earlier premise, but in the intervening years since I posited the above comments, I have seen examples of…verb-noun blurring that appear to infiltrate the entire English-speaking world simultaneously. I credit the Internet for the pollution. If not for the Internet, (why does my iPad insist on capitalising that?) I think the more egregious instances of verb/noun transferral would simply die out of their own inappropriateness.
I know you are waiting for it…my #1 pet peeve. It has bugged me for a couple years or more. I’ve seen it become “the norm” in advertising use. The word is gift. When–and, more importantly, why–did that noun become a verb? Did I miss something? I certainly didn’t get the memo… Why in the world did someone decide that ‘give’ is no longer useful as the verb? It still works for me.
There are plenty more examples, of which (in Australia, at least) many have their roots in the public service bureaucracy. I’m not going to canvass them all here…I’m sure you get my drift. But I would love to hear from you about your own linguistic pet peeves. Let’s make a list, and stand together–refusing to use these stupid perversions of our language!
Boy! I’m sure glad to get that off my chest! MM
My main bugbear is when Word (which is supposed to have a UK dictionary checking spelling) insists on inserting the letter ‘z’ where we would use an ‘s’. This is Americanisation by stealth. If you’re writing a book it takes much time and effort to constantly change the inserted zeds back to esses. So much for the UK dictionary. But I persist as I’m determined to keep our spelling along with many of our Scottish words and phrases.
Ah, well…I have the opposite problem…
I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘gift’ as a verb is in the Macquarie dictionary. My pet gripe used to be ‘youse’ and I was very pedantic about it. Then it was added to the Macquarie dictionary – now it’s, shut up Trish!
Common usage dictates what is correct now MM and with the use of social media changes are probably adopted even more quickly than ever. 🙂
Yep.
Check the movie Lonesome Dove for some interesting old-time usages.
Thanks, Gary, I will. Better than admitting I remember old-time things…
MM, you certainly must know that Henry Hornet would be most unhappy with your using the British/Aussie spellings of such good U.S. words as “characterization” and “generalization.”
I don’t usually type it that way, but my iPad changes it. I even get the (unnecessary) u in labour and behaviour… By now I’ve learned to just give in to it. You may notice, however, that I have not given in to the convention of using a ‘t ‘ in place of ‘ed’ in words like learned…I do draw the line there! A girl’s gotta have some standards!
You must have English Aus as you default speller in your ipad MM if it keeps coming up Australian! 🙂
Oh.. so many! The over use of “like.” Free gift. (a gift is free), upcoming, nouns used as verbs like breakfast (ed), lunch (ed, etc. But language usage changes over time– new words are invented and adopted into the popular lexicon, old ones are phased out. I suppose it’s all about getting used to change. But the assault on one’s ears can be deafening!
I hear you! You’ve hit some of my big gripes. Not just the overuse, but the totally unnecessary use of “like.” It as taken the place of the old bugaboo, “you know.”