Monday, September 18, 2006
Emergence of Proper Verbs
I remember back in my days when I was in NUS, the first essay that I was given to write upon is - "While we know there are proper nouns in English, is there such a thing as a proper verb in English Language?"
To start off, here are some examples of proper nouns. The first letter of the words for the proper nouns are are usually capitalised, like National University of Singapore. They can be abbreviated. e.g. NUS. They are very specific. e.g. there is one and only one NUS in the whole world. In case you are looking for the model answer for the essay, the model answer is, "No, there are no proper verbs."
Alas, back in those days, I argued for the presence of proper verbs. I argued that there ARE indeed proper verbs in English Language. Though not rampant, I argued that there ARE proper verbs. In addition, I stated that I expect more proper verbs in time to come.
To start, I shall qualify what I mean my proper verbs. Using the same measure, I think it is reasonable to state that the first letter of words that make up proper verbs can be capitalised, they can be abbreviated, and must refer to a very specific act. I gave the examples of SMS as in "I SMS-ed him just now" To pin it down, we see a tense inflection usually seen for verb, the word SMS is given the suffix -ed to denote past tense. Need more examples? Yahoo websites asked people, "Do you Yahoo?" with "Yahoo" occupying a position where a verb should occupy. In each of the case given, the proper verbs refer to a specific act. SMS is specific verb, in addition, it is abbreviated. Yahoo is a specific verb, in addition, the 1st letter for the word is capitalised.
Nowadays, I see proper verbs getting more and more rampant. I hear people asking people to google over something, mrbrown made this remark in his recent post "When you IMF-ers are done IMF-ing" with inflecting IMF with a continuous tense typical of verbs and verbs only.
Notice a trend? I expect to see more of proper verbs in future as out society progress. Another trend I want to point out is such proper verbs are almost used only exclusively to describe some new actions which the dictionary does not have. Because of the emergence of new actions, there is an emergence of proper verbs. In short, I expect proper verbs to keep abreast with new actions. Co-incidentally, such proper verbs that I have pointed out are related to computer and technology.
Just in case you are wondering how much did I get despite of not adhering to the model answer, I got a A-. Rats~! I think I deserve an A+! hahahaha... just joking. :P
To start off, here are some examples of proper nouns. The first letter of the words for the proper nouns are are usually capitalised, like National University of Singapore. They can be abbreviated. e.g. NUS. They are very specific. e.g. there is one and only one NUS in the whole world. In case you are looking for the model answer for the essay, the model answer is, "No, there are no proper verbs."
Alas, back in those days, I argued for the presence of proper verbs. I argued that there ARE indeed proper verbs in English Language. Though not rampant, I argued that there ARE proper verbs. In addition, I stated that I expect more proper verbs in time to come.
To start, I shall qualify what I mean my proper verbs. Using the same measure, I think it is reasonable to state that the first letter of words that make up proper verbs can be capitalised, they can be abbreviated, and must refer to a very specific act. I gave the examples of SMS as in "I SMS-ed him just now" To pin it down, we see a tense inflection usually seen for verb, the word SMS is given the suffix -ed to denote past tense. Need more examples? Yahoo websites asked people, "Do you Yahoo?" with "Yahoo" occupying a position where a verb should occupy. In each of the case given, the proper verbs refer to a specific act. SMS is specific verb, in addition, it is abbreviated. Yahoo is a specific verb, in addition, the 1st letter for the word is capitalised.
Nowadays, I see proper verbs getting more and more rampant. I hear people asking people to google over something, mrbrown made this remark in his recent post "When you IMF-ers are done IMF-ing" with inflecting IMF with a continuous tense typical of verbs and verbs only.
Notice a trend? I expect to see more of proper verbs in future as out society progress. Another trend I want to point out is such proper verbs are almost used only exclusively to describe some new actions which the dictionary does not have. Because of the emergence of new actions, there is an emergence of proper verbs. In short, I expect proper verbs to keep abreast with new actions. Co-incidentally, such proper verbs that I have pointed out are related to computer and technology.
Just in case you are wondering how much did I get despite of not adhering to the model answer, I got a A-. Rats~! I think I deserve an A+! hahahaha... just joking. :P
# posted by dreamy_panda @ 12:44 AM 
