"We have to turn the concept of gratitude from a noun into a verb." —Meerabelle Dey I like using more verbs and fewer nouns. It underscores the expression "that the name is not the thing.” Nouns and ...

ONE major word-formation process in English is to use the noun itself as a verb to express the action conveyed or implied by the noun, doing this without changing the form of the noun in any way. This ...

Call it “verbing.” Just as medieval alchemists sought to change base metals into gold, modern writers and speakers change nouns (“incentive,” “sunscreen,” “gift”) into verbs. The preceding examples ...

DIPLOMATS the world over know that a well-chosen turn of phrase can make or break a negotiation. But the psychological effects of different grammatical structures have not been investigated as ...