How Verbs Will Change Your Life! (And improve, enrich, and enhance it)

Nouns are fine, but I prefer verbs. Verbs sparkle. Verbs excel. Verbs rule.

A few weeks ago, I added a new verb to my vocabulary. It happened when I attended a party for my friend Susan Dominus’ excellent book, The Family Dynamic. Susan’s book argues, in part, that we overestimate the influence parents have on their kids and underestimate the influence siblings have on each other.

At the party, Susan’s sister Ellen gave a speech about the importance of being a good sibling. Ellen pointed out that the English language has a verb for being a parent – parenting. But English lacks a verb for acting as a sibling. Maybe we need a verb to express the act of being a brother or sister. Perhaps siblinging? Or to sible? I sible, she sibles, we sible?

I love Ellen’s point. It reminded me that being a sibling is not a passive state. It’s a series of actions. It’s a process. It made me realize that I should sible more often. I should call my sister, ask her about her kids, and thank her for keeping a backup list of my parents’ passwords.

What if we went even further? What if we had verbs for other relationships? What if there were spousing, aunting, uncling, and offspringing?

I know this last sentence will make some language purists retch.

But I’d like to humbly propose that verbing has its advantages. Yes, I just used the word verb as a verb. And according to the dictionary, I’m allowed to do so! A couple of years ago, the official Scrabble dictionary added “verb” as a verb. It means to turn a noun into a verb. The Collins English Dictionary goes further and says the verb “verbifying” is acceptable.*

The practice has been around for centuries. Shakespeare turned the word “elbow” into a verb, and did the same to many other nouns. Nowadays, we’re verbing more and more frequently. The word “parent” got verbed in the 1960s. Until then, it was mostly used as a noun. But in the 1960s, society became more thoughtful about (some would say obsessed with) raising kids, and the verb “to parent” gained popularity. More recently, the word “adult” has been verbified. You’re “adulting” when you’re paying your bills and filling out insurance forms. Then there’s scrapbooking and journaling.

These noun-to-verb conversions have always enraged some language purists, including my favorite Founding Father, Ben Franklin. In the 1700s, he wrote a cranky letter to Noah Webster about the verbing of nouns such as “notice,” “advocate,” and “progress.” (His grumpiness surprised me, because in other ways, Franklin was the opposite of a linguistic reactionary — for instance, he wanted radical spelling reform. I almost said he ‘advocated’ it, but that would be disrespectful.)

Today, it’s hard to find someone angry about the existence of the verb “notice.” What starts out as an obnoxious neologism often grows into standard usage.

Can verbifying go too far? Absolutely. I recently read an article decrying the neologism “efforting,” and I have to agree. That word seems like an unnecessary (and more syllabic) synonym for “work.” Also, although I like the notion behind the quote “God is a verb” (attributed to Buckminster Fuller), I wouldn’t want to say “He was Godding really hard yesterday.” So not all verbifying is equal.

But verbifying can have its benefits. As I said up top, I love me some verbs. They remind me that life is about action and change. For instance, being a parent is not just about the fact that I contributed my DNA to my kids 18 years ago. Parenting is about taking action – about being present and getting involved (but not too involved, of course).

Verbifying can help change your perspective. I haven’t used the verb ‘spousing’ in conversation (I don’t want the eye rolls), but I sometimes think about the word. I say to myself, I should spouse more today. Marriage takes work, as Ben Affleck pointed out in a memorable Oscar speech (yeah, I probably shouldn’t quote Ben Affleck on marriage). The point is, “spouse” is not just a title you earn when you say “I do.” Spousing requires dishwasher-loading, emotion-sharing, and perspective-shifting. It requires compromise and attention.

Verbifying might also help with more scientific ideas. When I researched my book on health, I read an interesting book by physician and USC professor Davd Agus. He argues that we should reframe the word cancer as a verb. A body is cancering when its cells are malfunctioning. It’s better to conceive of the disease as a dynamic state than as a static object to be removed. We should focus on shifting a cancering body to a healthy body.

As I’ve written before, nouns can lead to essentialism. This is especially true for labels applied to people. If you say someone is “an asshole,” you are implying that assholeness is an essential part of their being, now and forever. But the truth is usually more complicated. We’re all swayed by circumstances, and sometimes we behave like assholes, and other times we do not.

So if one of my sons says, “X is an asshole,” I suggest my son say instead, “X is acting in an asshole-ish manner this week.” After all, we don’t know the big picture. Maybe he’s having a horrible time at home.”. It’s a crucial shift in viewing the world. If you see someone’s personality as more malleable, you’re more likely to find solutions and common ground.

When you assign nouns to people — idiot, right-winger, leftist — it flattens those people. Not to mention that labels are often self-fulfilling. They make it more likely the person will start to see themselves that way and live up to their label.

This is not to say we should get rid of nouns, of course. I realize we need nouns to communicate. I’ve used a whole bunch of nouns in this post. I wouldn’t want to go to a restaurant and try to order a sandwich without using nouns. But in the hierarchy of parts of speech, I put verbs right at the top.

I’ll stop there and go back to parenting, offspringing, and spousing. Not to mention taking part in the democratic process. The late congressperson John Lewis said, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.” So with apologies again to Ben Franklin, and a tip of the hat to Baratunde Thurston, I might try some citizening as well.

*I’m not a professional linguist, so forgive me if I’m using the word “verb” too loosely for your taste. I know there are also parts of speech called “verbals,” which are forms of verbs such as gerunds, participles, and infinitives. For instance, “parenting” is often used as a gerund, which makes it function as a noun even though it’s expressing an action. To me, the important part is the stress on action and dynamism.