Using Nouns as Verbs

Thanks to Meme Generator.

 I would like to talk to you about some nerd things.  You all remember nouns, our dear friends which are composed of: Person(s), Place(s), Thing(s).  These are nouns.  Some can be used as verbs as well, but we probably don't think about it very often.  How about E-mail?  Can you not e-mail yourself an e-mail?  Or message yourself a short message?  Sure it sounds silly, but I don't believe there to be anything wrong with it... I just think it's awkward.  Well, these are becoming more common in English as these examples will show you.  Some, well, they are perfectly normal, and some are very awkward.

In Korean and other languages this can be a very common practice but it's more of a built in thing.  Maybe it just seems more built in because I learned it this way from the start.

For example, the word for song in Korean, 노래 (No-rae) can be used in conjunction with the verb 하다 (Ha-da), basically something like "To do".  By combining 노래(No-rae) with 하다 (Ha-da) we can see--노래 하다 (No-rae ha-da), which means "To Sing".  You can use many nouns with 하다 (Ha-da) and it has the same result.  If you wrote it out in a literal fashion it would mean something like "Song to do" or perhaps "To do song."

In English we can do it, but it's not really appropriate in all circumstances... It's becoming more common since English is moving away from our Teutonic, or Germanic roots and is becoming a bit of an isolating language, much like Chinese.  It's kind of crazy, and you might not think it makes much sense, but fear not, just skip over some of the details and look at the examples below.

Frederick Bodmer, retired professor in the Department of Modern Languages at MIT, (succeeded by Noam Chomsky), when explaining the commonalities of Chinese and English said:

"We man a boat but we do not woman a cookery class.  We buy salt and salt our soup, bottle wine and drink from the bottle, but we do not as yet mustard our bacon or cupboard our pants." (The Loom of Language)

Can you tell me which are normal and which make you burst into laughter?  What makes them so much different from each other?

To Door.  To door someone.  Running into the house my mother doored me.
To Food.  After I food my children then we will leave.
To Oven.  I ovened a pizza for dinner last night. (Microwave?)
To Fork.  We just bought 5,000 forks and forked our neighbors yard. (Spoon?)
To Card.  Please card people who are younger than 29.
To Chair.  Chair your child, before he gets out of control.
To Phone.  I'll phone you later.
To House.  House this family and call me after.
To Knee.  He just kneed me in the balls.  It's not nice to knee your friends!
To Camera.  Can you please camera me?
To Trunk.  Trunk this bag and hop in the car.
To Mustard.  Mustard that bread first and then put the ham on.
To Pant and Shirt yourself.  Pant and Shirt yourself and then let's go, we're already late!
To Bra.  Bra yourself, girl, you nasty!

Can you think of any good ones?  Any funny examples, or perhaps exceptionally awkward?  Please share if you care for such things, I would greatly appreciate it!

Borrowed from www.online-literature.com, property of Bill Watterson, Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Sources:

• The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages, by Frederick Bodmer.

• Common Writing Errors: Nouns as verbs.

• Annoyed About Nouns As Verbs

• Verbing The Noun 

• List of 150 Noun/Verb Words 

• Calvin and Hobbes: Verbing Nouns

In the end if you are not completely convinced why not google it?  Or go google yourself for all I care!

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