Nouns that Were Verbed in the Olympics
Now that both the Olympics and Paralympics are over, reflecting on language used at the events is due. The connection between the Games and the English language is not an obvious one, but some controversy did brew up this year over sports terms such as “medal” and “podium” that are now occasionally used as verbs. However, as Liz Potter of the Macmillan Dictionary blog notes in “They Came, They Medalled, They Podiumed”, the verbing of nouns is not a new phenomenon in the language (nor is resistance to such evolution one might add). In fact, many other nouns, unrelated to the Olympics, have recently become common verbs: to blog, from web log, to friend and unfriend from Facebook features, and to Facebook are just a few examples.
So why are Olympics-related terms so controversial? Possibly because the event is a high profile one with global coverage. The furore over “medal”, which has not only been used as a verb but also as an adjective, as in “the most medalled Olympian”, has been documented by The Guardian newspaper’s style editor, David Marsh, who defended the use in relation to the 2008 Olympics, commenting that it was neither illegal nor immoral, while, for the purists, it was a sign that “the linguistic barbarians are not only at the gates: they have battered their way through, pulled up a chair, helped themselves to a beer and are now undermining our very way of life by rewriting our grammar books to suit their evil purpose” (“Mind Your Language”).
Historically in English, nouns have been verbed, and verbs have been nouned: the process is called conversion. Those who react violently to such verbal variation are simply undermining the linguistic creativity of others, as well as the natural evolution of the language.
Posted by May Mikati on 10 September 2012, 10:57 AM
Now that both the Olympics and Paralympics are over, reflecting on language used at the events is due. The connection between the Games and the English language is not an obvious one, but some controversy did brew up this year over sports terms such as “medal” and “podium” that are now occasionally used as verbs. However, as Liz Potter of the Macmillan Dictionary blog notes in “They Came, They Medalled, They Podiumed”, the verbing of nouns is not a new phenomenon in the language (nor is resistance to such evolution one might add). In fact, many other nouns, unrelated to the Olympics, have recently become common verbs: to blog, from web log, to friend and unfriend from Facebook features, and to Facebook are just a few examples.
So why are Olympics-related terms so controversial? Possibly because the event is a high profile one with global coverage. The furore over “medal”, which has not only been used as a verb but also as an adjective, as in “the most medalled Olympian”, has been documented by The Guardian newspaper’s style editor, David Marsh, who defended the use in relation to the 2008 Olympics, commenting that it was neither illegal nor immoral, while, for the purists, it was a sign that “the linguistic barbarians are not only at the gates: they have battered their way through, pulled up a chair, helped themselves to a beer and are now undermining our very way of life by rewriting our grammar books to suit their evil purpose” (“Mind Your Language”).
Historically in English, nouns have been verbed, and verbs have been nouned: the process is called conversion. Those who react violently to such verbal variation are simply undermining the linguistic creativity of others, as well as the natural evolution of the language.
Posted by May Mikati on 10 September 2012, 10:57 AM
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