Let’s verb again, like we did last Christmas
By Ted Potrikus
Do you remember the classic comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes”? It was my daily must-read back when it ran in newspapers; it remains a go-to in its various printed collections or online.
My favorite among the strips finds Calvin telling Hobbes this: “I like to verb words.”
He goes on: “I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when ‘access’ was a thing? Now it’s something you do. It got verbed.”
“Verbing,” he says, “weirds language.”
Hobbes responds: “Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.”
It was funny back then, but I’m not laughing any more. In fact, if last week I went all Bah on the overuse of Christmasy music in seasonal advertising, this week I’m opening up a giant can of Humbug on the verbing of nouns that comes around this time of year.
It’s a little game I play with myself that began a few years ago when A Big Worldwide Coffee Shop Conglomerate invited me via a sticker on its door to “Autumn.” “Let’s Autumn,” it said, and, after I rolled my eyes a lot I decided that it was time to find someplace else for my caffeine fix. It seems like Autumn is about the time that commercial noun verbing begins in earnest, so like some out there who time the seasons by trying to guess when retailers will break out the Christmas decorations, for me, it’s not truly Autumn until some store verbs a noun.
The practice shifts into high gear, though, in tandem with the annual outbreak of too-early Christmas displays. And this year, there are two prime offenders.
One started in early November: a Giant Worldwide Discount Retail Conglomerate (we’re establishing a pattern of culpability here) introduced window statics and small signs reading “Let’s Joy.” I was not aware that one could actually joy.
But as Christmas itself approaches, they’ve upped the annoyance factor with a whole slew of commercials urging me to joy, fully.
Oh I see what they did there! Ha ha! Yes! But, no. No thank you. Not that I don’t want to be joyful, or fully feel joy. It’s just that I am not going to joy to any extent.
As bad as that is, though, there’s another commercial out there that tells me to “Happy the Holidays.” What the what, now? One cannot happy anything. I won’t belabor the point.
It’s another shopping outlet to boycott and, yes, I realize I’m beginning to shrink my available universe of places to shop simply on account of my aversion to their utter abuse of the English language. I’m certain, too, that their crackerjack creatives have come up with similar ways to butcher languages around the world.
And it’s yet another reason for me to shop locally, slogan-free, and joyfully.