Excuse Me, Weren't You Once a Noun?

A new food store opened recently in a community very near our home.  Being a cross between a gourmet grocery and a health food store, it caused quite a sensation in the first couple of weeks after opening.  I went to check it out, along with hundreds of other people.  Not being in the mood that day to line up with those hundred or so people who waited at the check-out, I chose only a few items and was diverted from the express lane by a staffer who sent me to the sandwich/juice bar for ringing up.  A woman standing beside me was picking up her juice order (it was a verdant concoction of herbs and green veggies, no doubt healthful, but which looked like blenderized grass clippings – it made me shudder, let me tell you — see my blog from October 5/11.)  

She was sharing her personal history with the juice barista, you know, as one does. 

“I used to juice at home all the time,” she said, “but I don’t juice anymore.”

Really? I thought. So, now “juice” is a verb?

Is this part of some plot being promulgated by a cult bent on verbinating nouns?  Like those users of the former noun, “impact”?  Is it a media conspiracy? I mean, I do find myself yelling at the television every time a reporter announces that traffic has been impacted by a stalled vehicle on Interstate 75.  “Impact is not a verb,” I’ll shout! 

Has it been so onerous over the years to use the word properly that we had to find a shortcut?  Were we looking for a convenient way out of using a sentence like, “A vehicle, stalled in the left lane on I-75, has had a negative impact on traffic this morning”?

Has the specious verb “to impact” become accepted into common grammar – or is it actually just verbiage; in other words, nonsense, verbosity in the guise of sophisticated, bombastic media vocabulary?

I found an entire blog on the topic. It started off with reasonably argued, and humorous, positions on how language has been impacted by this phenomenon.  One blogger stated that “impacted” is only for bowels and teeth.  Someone wrote back that they thought they’d like to date that person.  I assumed that was sarcasm. After that the blog deteriorated into sniping, one-liner comments between the two writers who started the discussion.  It got tiresome. In other words, it had a negative impact on me.

I then turned to Merriam-Webster online for answers.  Egad!  According to this respected source, “impact” is indeed both a noun and a verb – has been since 1635! Not only that, but it is both a transitive and an intransitive verb (look it up.) Zounds!  I guess I should stop yelling at the TV.  Ken would probably appreciate it.

I looked up some other words that have been troubling me. “Scrapbook” is apparently not yet a verb, but is used that way by ladies at the Hobby Lobby, as in, “I’m scrapbooking my daughter’s wedding photos.”

“Google” is a verb, and apparently not yet a noun, according to the M-W dictionary.

All of this got me thinking that maybe other words in our recent past might have sounded odd to someone’s ears when they heard them make the leap from noun to verb. Take the word, “phone” for example.  Was it weird when the former noun, short for “telephone” of course, started to show up in conversation to describe the action of making the call? At one time did it sound really dumb to hear someone say, “Phone me later!”  Was it critical to find a shortcut from the more grammatical, but utterly cumbersome and vexatious, “Call me on the phone later”? 

So, in that same vein, will “juice” soon become an action word?  Will we soon be saying, “I juiced for breakfast today”? How about, “I egged”?  Or, “I coffeed”?

I went back to Merriam-Webster.  OMG!  They say “juice” can be a verb!

Good grief!  Did it get in there between the time that I went to the health food store and the time I’ve sat down here to write?  Was that juice- drinker smarter than me?  I’ll have to remember the new smart terminology when next I order juice!

This blog is dedicated to Zach and Ryan, proprietors of the  Juice Truck in Vancouver, BC., who, not even once, use the word “juice” as a verb on their web site.  You can find out about them at www.juicetruck.ca . (Zach is the son of our good friends, Joel Berman and Sandy Postl. Cheers, you guys!)