It’s a well-known fact among linguists that the natural life of English words is evolving from nouns into verbs. I specifically say “evolving” and not “devolving” because I’m not a language purist. Some people will sit around moaning about how language is breaking down and whatnot, but these are probably the same people who complained about automobiles and women wearing pants and The Beatles. It’s been going on since before Shakespeare first used “torture,” “gossip,” “forward” and “lapse” as verbs (he also moved some, like “scuffle,” from a verb to a noun), so it’s about time to get over it.

The series of tubes neé internets neé cyberspace neé World Wide Web (in standard parlance) has certainly accelerated the process, partly because it spreads everything faster and partly because it provides so many new opportunities for new verbs. This is really just a continuation of my old wikiwandering post.

The argument about whether “Googling” is allowed originated during my time as a journalist, but it still seems like a really long time ago. Same with “Photoshopped” as an adjective, or lawl- neé lol- neé LOLspeak as a system of syntax. I was already an editor before papers stopped using www.MySpace.com on every reference. (Look for a manifesto regarding “website” in coming days.)

The most recent noun/verb evolution in use in my household is “internetting” for the general activity of using a computer (aka internets machine) to access the internet for general purposes like blogging, reading blogs, checking news stories, checking email or browsing YouTube (the standard round of websites). This led to the variant “internetzing,” derived from “internets,” obviously, and cuter with a Z because it looks like waltzing or something. This leads to sentences like, “I internetzed for a while after breakfast” or “I’ll just being internetzing until you’re ready to go.”

There’s a certain amount of futile nobility in trying to freeze it exactly as-is, but it’s just obstinate when it starts interfering with the purpose of language, which is communicating ideas in the most efficient way possible.