big red rant about something utterly unimportant

[firecat]

There is absolutely no reason ever to use "gift" as a verb!


That is all.

Comments

[ona-tangent.livejournal.com]

I *heart* you.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[krasota.livejournal.com]

I gift you with great patience.

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

That's right up there with "message" as a verb.

[laurenhat.livejournal.com]

Do you dislike the creation of new verbs in general? Or does that one in particular irritate you (and if so, why)?

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Or interface.

contrary

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oxford Etymology figures it was a verb in Old English.

[redbird]

My eyes hurt.

[firecat]

"message" doesn't bother me as much because there isn't already a verb that has the same root and everything.

[firecat]

This one bugs me more, because there's already a perfectly good verb "give" that shares a root with "gift". That makes the verbing of "gift" especially pretentious, IMO.

Re: contrary

[firecat]

Then it ought to stay there, although if we bring all the rest of Old English back with it, I suppose that would be OK.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Nor "breath". There's a perfectly good verb form. Nor "birth", if you want to be pedantic (which I often do). :-)

[firecat]

.

[firecat]

At least interface is better than liaise

[firecat]

Sorry. :/

[firecat]

"Breath" is used as a verb? I've never seen that, thank goodness.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Well, ok, I usually parse it as a simple spelling mistake.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Yuck! No argument! :-)

[laurenhat.livejournal.com]

*nod* I guess the remaining question, then (at least in terms of whether such use seems reasonable to me, though obviously you're free to have your own set of pet peeves), is whether they are being used synonymously. I can think of cases where they seem to have different connotations (e.g., "I'll give you the money" vs. "I'll gift you with the money" -- the former could be about giving as repayment or giving as a loan, or a number of other non-gift situations).

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

What about re-gift?

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Not even in "re-gift"?

[tsamm.livejournal.com]

Of all the usage offenses occurring daily on LJ and in the world at large, this is the one that sets you off? Hee! (and oh dear, I think I hit the jackpot!)

[aranel.livejournal.com]

I prefer "messenge."

[firecat]

The usage I saw that caused me to rant was one where "give" would have been synonymous (a present-giving occastion was being discussed). I haven't seen it used to disambiguate.

[firecat]

That doesn't bug me, but it's an entirely different verb.

[firecat]

See answer to epi_lj

[firecat]

Hee! FWIW, your entry was not what set off the rant.

And yes, I prefer to reserve my public displays of wrath for entirely minor and unimportant things.

[firecat]

!!!!!

[kshandra]

It's weird. I don't mind seeing it in a Burning Man context (where the Org has been trying, with varying levels of success, to change the view of the event over the last several years from a barter economy to a gift economy); within that specific context I see it as a reinforcement of that idea (I'm gifting you this necklace/glowstick/cup of chai/whatever and hope you enjoy it vs. I'll give you this if you've got something cool for me in exchange). Back in Reality Camp, however, it bugs me damn near as much as it does you.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

*nod* As you say, only acceptable in the form of "regift", an entirely different word.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

(here via saluqi)

Can I please marry you?

And can we ban author too? There is never any justification for that one... or doesn't anyone write any more?

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I was hoping someone would say that. Worse, I've been told that in the computer biz, they're starting to make architect a verb.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

I'm with you.

[ailbhe]

What's wrong with "birth" as a verb? It's been around a long time, seems a shame to throw it out now.

(Agree about gift, unless you're speaking Swedish).

[pixiecrinkle.livejournal.com]

I'll see your "gift" and raise you a "dialogue." Ick.

[firecat]

Oh yeah, I HATE that one. I've even had programmers (who will remain nameless) try to justify it to me.

[firecat]

At least I haven't seen "gift with birth".

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I always thought "liaise" is what French-made lasers did.

[snippy]

I have, but only in legal documents.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, I work in the industry and I have totally given up hope of ever seeing proper English in any material there.

Here's a mild - but still incredibly annoying - example I saw a few months back:
Q37. Why is Compaq changing the colors of its ProLiant servers and racks?
A37. Rather than changing colors, we are leveraging a portion of our color palette – which includes Graphite, Carbon and Silver – across our [...] product lines. This new consistency is the culmination of our strategy to integrate the three heritage businesses of Compaq, Tandem and Digital Equipment Corporation in the enterprise customer space.

So, they don't "change", they "leverage". I'm not sure what colour differences there are between graphite, carbon and silver - I presume one is black. Using "heritage" to refer to the computer industry is something I'm not going to touch with a bargepole. Finally, I can't quite decipher "integrate [stuff] in the enterprise customer space". Perhaps it's translated from German.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

And I almost forgot. I'm a systems administrator - apparently we administrate our servers.

!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!!eleventy!!!!argh!!!!!!!

[firecat]

[*bangs head on wall*]
[*passes out into blissful unconsciousness*]

[supergee.livejournal.com]

"Heritage" (or sometimes "legacy") means stuff that we're stuck with because it's descended from stuff that used to work. We have a heritage president.

Re: contrary

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. Actually the book is rather definite that we did leave it there, as it didn't appear in Middle English.