No, I haven't got another story for you. Rather I am about to engage in a rant about verbing. I have previously defended or even engaged in this dubious practice, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I am drawing it here.One of my favourite observations is that making a past participle out of a noun tends to give a reasonable euphemism for being drunk - usually when you say this people look around the room and try it out (it helps if you add "I was completely...") and come up with chaired, salted, buildinged (see?). Incidentally I can't remember which stand-up comedian did this - if anyone knows I'll happily pass on the credit. Eventually someone looks at a picture on the wall and says "Framed?" at which point you have to point out that it doesn't work for nouns that already double as verbs. As I have pointed out, in this country that is virtually every noun, but that's another issue.
If only the people at Banana Boat had had me there to point out that you cannot make the noun tear (a drop of water that falls from your eye) into a verb meaning to shed a tear because it already is a verb meaning to rip. There is no way that this 'Tear Free' product can pronounce 'No Tearing' without it meaning 'No Ripping'. There's the line right there. Verbing may weird language but tearing will never mean the same as crying.
(I wonder how Odiogo-man will do with that one?!)
The source of the Hudson River is Lake Tear of the Clouds and I've always avoided saying it out loud because I'm not 100% sure which sort of 'tear' it is.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of leaving myself open to being shot down in flames by the razor sharp mind of the Exile...
ReplyDeleteTear (drop of water) and Tear (to rip) are actually different words derived from different sources. According to my Concise OED, Tear (drop of water) comes from the Old English 'teran', whereas Tear (to rip ) comes from the Old English 'tear' with funny accent over the 'e' that I can't type in plain text.
Therefore, if one accepts that the 'verbing' of nouns is linguistically valid in certain cultures (ie the US) then it is perfectly reasonable to verbalise (!) the noun Tear (drop of water) into 'Tearing' without it being confused with the other completely separate verb meaning 'drop of water'.
Of, to confuse things further, Tear (to rip, already has an associated noun, eg "there is a tear in my jacket".
Fire away ;-) ...
A
Albaniana - Exile #2 and I couldn't agree on which sort of tear that was either. I'll ask the Iroquois next time I see them.
ReplyDeleteA - I'm not sure whether to be flattered by 'razor sharp mind' or offended by 'shot down in flames', but I'm sure I won't resist!
Your logic is valid of course, but it all comes down to whether you accept that the use of nouns as verbs is valid. I would say that it is OK as a shorthand for communication, but as such has to take a back seat to the established language. Exile #2 as an English Literature graduate has a more generous nature and considers language use to define language validity (I'm hoping to have misrepresented her so she'll join in!). As you say there are already several meanings of tear - but one of them is not 'to shed a tear' - so inventing such a meaning does not generate a useful shorthand - it generates confusion with the (shall we say?) more established meanings.
P.S. As ever - thanks for playing :-)