The nuances of language - when to be pedantic about made-up words

AS soon as I’d said it, I knew I’d done a bad thing. My wife had a “You, of ALL people” look on her face.

We were talking about doing something for the wedding anniversary. It should have been a happy conversation, not least because we were talking about it before the wedding anniversary. And then I said it.

“Yeah, let’s go all out and really occasion it this year.” Occasion it? Ok it’s a verb, but not like that. How could I do such a thing? Yes, ‘Me-of-ALL-people’, who has to go somewhere peaceful with birdsong when he sees “that” spelled as “tat” in a Facebook comment and whose private member’s bill to outlaw the word ‘bants’ is already at the committee stage in his imaginary Dáil. But like most humans, I’m a mess of contradictions, both an arch-pedant and a neologist who takes pleasure in inventing new words. Examples include ‘gallerache’ — a pain you get in your lower back while visiting a museum because of the lack of slouching surfaces — or ‘anglow’— the healthy complexion of someone who has just recently been acquitted of some heavy-duty financification.

But back to the occasion at hand. It’s part of a creeping trend to use nouns as verbs and verbs as nouns. The Olympics has brought us ‘to medal’ instead of ‘to win a medal’. This means that if you were a champion philanderer, you could theoretically be said to medal in your own affairs.

Often, these verb-noun switches are done in order to soften the blow of more straightforward words. Imagine you are in the office. Everyone is under pressure to get the Horizon-2030 project ‘actioned’. Think how much better you would feel if this addition to your workload arrived in the form of an ‘ask’ rather than a request. A request is harsh. An ask is more friendly — although ultimately passive-aggressive. An ask says “hey buddy, I’m as annoyed about this as you are but whaddyasay, sport? For the team?”

Similarly, picture yourself at a conference. It’s the afternoon and your body is telling you it can’t digest this chicken supreme with white sauce, baby potatoes and baton carrots AND watch a powerpoint presentation where the font is too small. If there’s any hope at all of retaining anything from this day, it will have to be presented as a ‘bunch of learnings’ rather than lessons. The last thing the brain needs now is a lesson. A learning is more gentle. The window is open. Everyone is dressed in white. Someone is holding your head and chanting.

The question all pedants should ask themselves is precisely how angry should one get about all of this verb-noun switching. Is mild irritation sufficient or would spitting rage, banging doors and cancelling family excursions be a more acceptable response?

The answer is: be careful. Many of these switcheroos — sorry — and other jarring usage are older than you. ‘Learnings’ was used by Shakespeare. ‘Ask’ as a noun dates back 1,000 years. Even ‘presently’ is presently ok. Your high moral ground may be a little eroded by time. But bants can definitely ‘go and do one’.