©John Phipps 2002
Stop Me Before I Verb Again
Shakespeare used a vocabulary of tens of
thousands of words, perhaps as high as 30,000, frequently making them up as he
went (probably played a lot of Scrabble).
After this historic vocabulary high point, our Mother tongue, as abused
by all of us daily, has diminished to an average working toolkit of a few
thousand words, almost all of which are routinely displaced by some combination
of “like”, “you know”, “relate”, and “paradigm”.
This may not be a bad thing. As a
professional (as in IRS Schedule C, not as in subsistence) writer, having fewer
bullets to shoot means fewer decisions of which bullet to use. Plus, erudite
writers with vast lexicons are now forcibly reduced to the level of
semantically-challenged scribblers such as I me I him
us me. But the best news is that the most powerful weapon in years in
the fight against clear communication has been deployed. I refer, of course to
the now-widespread tactic of making a verb (defined as a word in a sentence on
a blackboard that the teacher underlines twice) out of any word you wish. By
making sturdy nouns, adjectives, propositions, subcontinents, etc. into action
words, a small vocabulary can seem to express all kinds of new thoughts without
the added bother of actually thinking.
The result is a unique style of writing or
speaking that can make you sound like the guy who hones the cutting edge. Magically,
the burden of comprehension is on the listener or reader, as they try to
interpret your clever reductionist substitutions. The added bonus here is, of
course, that deliberate obfuscation is now practicable by even the most
straightforward layman, something once limited to public relations specialists
and Andersen accountants.
The classic example of this practice is
the word “parent”. For most of my life “parent” was a noun meaning a person who
had, to use the scientific terminology, sprung off. A few years ago, in one of
the boldest pioneering moves in the history of lingo, “parent” became a verb
defined as “to do the stuff that parents do”. The speed with which “parenting”
became standard usage opened the floodgates or, as we now say, “floodgated” the
development of a myriad of new verbs.
Soon we were busy “partnering”, “dialoging”, and “networking”; devising
new names for old activities in a self-deceptive simulation of innovation. In
some cases we attached the ubiquitous “-ize” to lend an air of legitimacy to
our verbing. This was good strategizing.
Throw away that thesaurus – any word can
serve multiple functions, virtually extincting the synonym. Stylistically, it
is hard to argue with the quantum leap these literary land mines have provided.
Consider the following blurb:
Here in 2002, as
our great nation roads to the future, one central question is brained by all
good citizens: Will our country keep economying? The vigorous moneying of last
decade seems to be sputtering, bummering the National Attitude.
Politicians of all
flavors have worded on this troubling development. On TV, commentators pundit
daily on the causes and cures. Only this is sure: nobody knows, except Chairman
Greenspan. Unfortunately, his carefully Englished pronouncements are
insufficiently jargonized to give much guidance.
But, as we all
know, the American spender fickles. Even with consumer confidence aheading well
in recent polls, recovery is far from being certainized. Only time will tell
what history will reveal. Or maybe not. In either case, the important thing to
remember is these pungent thoughts were firsted here by me.
As our language devolves its
way back to grunts and gestures, this DIY approach could cause us to end up
with 270 million lingoes with few common words except basic profanity. Already
separate dialects exist for athletes, politicians, geeks, and women over 50 who
communicate principally with eyebrow movements.
I myself, am relanguaging
like anything. For example, I have coined the words “floodmare” – a realistic
dream about sump pump failure; “hyperoptionated” – a trance-like state induced
by War-and Peace restaurant menus; and “preproactive” – getting the jump on guys
who are merely proactive.
I am also looking into
word-buzzing – creating business slang like “rightsizing” or “off-balance
sheet”. So far I’ve buzzed “subinteresting” – the act of rolling a 7% CD into a
2%; and “infraculture” – a word that can mean almost anything (I expect it to
show up in the new farm bill regs).
Language – it’s not just for
the literate.
