Gift Turns into a Verb

Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 8:49 AM | Category: Meryl's Notes Blog 3 comments

Nowadays, it’s chic to turn nouns into verbs. The latest to receive verb status is ”
gift.”

Milk a cow. Water the grass. Fax a document. Some experts estimate that as many as one in five verbs began as nouns, Mr. Nunberg says. But that’s not to say that he — or his colleagues on the usage panel — approve of the use of “gift” as a verb. “Nobody ever likes this one,” says Mr. Nunberg, who feels it is tainted by commercialism and its overuse in gossip columns and press releases.

“Google,” “blog,” and “email” all started out as nouns.

Looks like the grammarians blame the celebs for this change. So is “gifting” like high profile gifting? How many times have you heard “re-gifting,” the “passing on a gift received to someone else as a gift?”

Gift me with returning “gift” as a noun.

FYI: This is Thanksgiving week in the U.S., so posting will be light. Please enjoy the time with friends and family.

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3 comments

  • Posted by Will Cox on November 24th, 2006, 8:10 PM

    I’ve long thought that the use of “gift” as a verb was part of snooty dialect, put on by those with pretensions of class. It could be Martha Stewart’s fault.

    Hope you had a happy Thanksgifting.

  • Posted by Andy Mason on November 25th, 2006, 11:48 PM

    “Gifting” is one of those nouns-turned-verbs that really grates on me. It doesn’t even make sense to do this, as “giving” is a shorter word than “gifting”.

  • Posted by Cindy on November 30th, 2006, 3:52 PM

    Gift as a verb isn’t new at all. It’s an old usage distinguishing what might be a mere physical tranference with giving as a gift.

    “Which shall seem to understand –
    Till I answer, ‘Rise and go!
    For the world must love and fear him
    Whom I gift with heart and hand.’”
    E B Browning
    from the Romance of the Swan’s Nest

    More examples may be found in the OED. It isn’t new just because a lot of people didn’t notice it before.

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