Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 23, 2023

From Middle English (in the sense ‘sudden attack of illness’): from Latin accessus, from the verb accedere ’to approach’ (see accede). access (sense 1 of the noun) is first recorded in the early 17th century.

Calvin, access has been a verb a lot longer than you realize.

Is that gonna be Calvin’s next excuse for why he’s still failing school?

He even verbed verb.

But why verb nouns when there is a perfectly good verb already? E.g. using “gift” as a verb. What’s wrong with “give”?

He only ‘thinks’ he’s a genius!!

I’m going to language some people.

That ship has already sailed.

“Verbing weirds language” is my favorite C&H quote!

And again, Bill was right on the money.

Language has been so corrupted, you can hardly say anything comprxhxnsxblx xny mxre.

English isn’t a real language. It’s a linguistic potluck dinner.

Verb on man!

What ever happened to Esperanto?

I remember when suddenly “access” became a verb. Drove me crazy. That was about the time “political correctness” came in, too.

Language exists to communicate. If it fails at communicating, then it needs to change. However, it has to change gradually and universally if communication is still going to happen. Otherwise, you just get confusion, misunderstanding, and frustration.

I blame Scrabble. Verb words are more versatile, so more players willed nouns into verbs.

Oh, Hobbes if you could have only seen the future of what language is these days!

Hate to tell you Hobbs, it already is ! ! ! !

So now weirds is a verb.

Since this first ran, we have, Its called texting.

oh we did that long ago

I’ve done that.

In the case of “ask” a verb became a noun. Not sure what was wrong with the noun “question”

Ask any school teacher and they’ll tell you “mission accomplished.”

I have an article called How to Write English Good.

In it I advise: Don’t verb nouns.

Impediment to understanding like the federal government does

I remember when “dialog” became a verb. It drove me crazy.

Calvin was Web 2.0 before Web 2.0 existed

I have always appreciated Buckminster Fuller’s saying, “I seem to be a verb.”

We already have. Ever listen to your kids talking amongst themselves – can’t understand a darn thing they’re saying.

Now young man, why can’t you be this clever in school? LOL

Yeah, ummmm like, you know, like like like, you know

The fine art of obfuscation.

My senior English teacher back in the ’60s would go nuts whenever someone used “loan” as a verb. “Can you loan me some money?” “Loan is a noun, can you lend me some money!” Now almost everyone uses it as a verb.

“Gift” is a fairly recent example.

Just wait until he gets a hold of emojis…

How compact your bodies are. And what a variety of senses you have. This thing you call language though, most remarkable. You depend on it for so very much. But is any one of you really its master?

- Kollos, the Medusan, from Star Trek.

Hobbes’s remark sounds like something George Orwell came up with.

welcome to management-speak

This strip impacted me today. No, actually. Literally, really. Yup.

This sentence no verb.

it’s getting there

Next, noun some adjectives…

Prescient, given the current state of the language

The English language is the most confusing of all! Some people never grasp the spellings and or multiple meanings.

One of my favorite examples of this trend is the insistence of some that we accede to the wishes of males and females who engage in a certain type of gender-denial cosplay by referring to them with plural rather than singular third-person pronouns.

And here we are!

That’s been a widely recognized thing for at least twenty years. Forget Bart Simpson, I think Calvin might have been the cartoon oracle.

We gift. We architect. We mangle our meanings while trying to sound relevant.

If you want rock-solid stability in your language, speak Latin. Then the rest of us will know to avoid you.

“Party” didn’t become a verb until the 1920s…

It is believed Microsoft “popularized” this trend when the installation of Windows 98 informed you that it was “finalizing” the installation, rather than “completing”.

Big tech continues to abuse the language. I cringe a little every time Google forces me to click on “It was me”, rather than “It was I” in a security challenge.

The biggest obstacle to communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw

Then there’s the gerund. Take a perfectly good verb and make it a noun.

“Maybe we can make language a complete impediment to understanding” Another prophecy being fulfilled today.

Remember trying to make sense of what Alexander Haig was saying?

“Maybe we can make language a complete impediment to understanding” — that’s lawyers’ job.

he needs to understand that he has to use his brain in English.

I was always told “impact” is not to be used as a verb. Something HAS impact on something, but something does NOT impact something. Recently, seeing it “misused” I googled it and what do you know, now it’s a verb too.

When I was a teenager, I (falsely) claimed to be “annoyed when someone verbs a noun”.

Indeed it does, Calvin. Or maybe “weirdens” would sound better than “weirds”…

Isn’t it already?

My family and I verb all the time. It’s just a part of our everyday speeching.

And sometimes we noun verbs.

Viking – a noun or a verb?

Let me “Google” that for you.

“Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their Greek. / In France every Frenchman knows His language fro A to Zed/. ( The French never care what they do, actually, As long as they pronounce it properly). / Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning. / And Hebrews learn it backwards, Which is absolutely frightening. / But use proper English you’re regarded as a freak.” Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady – 1956.

One of my pet peeves as well. TASK is not a verb, you are given a task. Blame the military for that one.

Talking about my gerund-ation

A little off the topic… but gaslight really still confuses me.

IT’S THE VERBING NOUNS COMIC!!

“Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.” Bill Waterson was a prophet. LOL

I understand that language is dynamic and evolving. And yet there are days ‘verbing’ gets out of hand.

It’s not far from now.

It’s become clear that English is being slowly shifted in my lifetime. Few people use ‘an’ anymore and it sounds odd when an ‘a’ is substituted. Comparatives are being changed. cold, colder and coldest are being replaced with cold, more cold and most cold. It doesn’t sound right but it is permissable. There are other things that keep shifting, too.

Sometimes, it seems that those least able to speak our language correctly are the ones driving the changing trends.

Reminds me of a thread I saw on Facebook years ago …

Person 1: “I just blurbed a book.”

Person 2: “I am not disturbed, or even perturbed, that you observed your love of ‘blurb’ as a verb.”

The way some people speak and/or write there’s a LARGE impediment to understanding already