Gray Matters by Stuart Carlson and Jerry Resler for August 24, 2013

The storm will IMPACT us by midnight.We will handle the CONCEIVING of any job.It has been a joy CONVERSING with you.

1. hit2. conception3. talking

I’m relating to you.

1. Or, simply “will impact us…”

2. {frankly, I’m not sure what they’re thinking of here??}

3. How about it’s been a pleasure “conversing” (formal} or more simply “speaking” with you? Sheesh….these days…“aina”???

D’oh!

One of my pet peeves. It started with “disrespecting”. I still refuse to use disrespect as a verb.

I kinda like the verbing of nouns.

I think I do now.

At least they didn’t say that she was transitioning into the new way to speak.

Primaried is a word that bugs me.

My old English teacher made it a point to tell us that “sneak” is not an irregular verb. The past tense is “sneaked”, not “snuck”.

Even now, I still can’t stand the use of ‘impact’ as a verb. But how about turning a verb into a noun, as when people say ‘fail’ instead of ‘failure’? I find that at least as obnoxious.

Remember when English actually had rules that worked. . .mostly, well unless “c”, and oh if the origin language was. . .um. Wait.

They look like gerunds to me.

It’s not new. Nouns have turned into verbs for as long as we’ve any record. Shakespeare was particularly guilty (if that’s the right word – because, bluntly, it’s actually something normal and not remotely wrong)