When Nouns Go Verb

Nouns that have changed to verbs, such as ‘login’, ‘text’, and ‘unlike’ have some grammarians in a fuss, but one lexicographer celebrates the changes as evidence of language’s dynamism. “When done well, verbing delights our brains. Philip Davis, a professor at the School of English at the University of Liverpool, devised a study in 2006 that tested just what happens when people read sentences with verbed nouns in them—and not just any verbed nouns, nouns verbed by Shakespeare. … So what did happen? The subjects understood—in a time measured in milliseconds—that something cool and new was happening.”