Nouning a Verb

A common complaint by grammarians is about verbing nouns (meaning using a noun as if it were a verb), which you can actually do in English. For example, you can say “Let’s table the motion.” 

Looks like you can noun a verb, too. Here’s what I mean:

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…or so goes the saying. “Well” and “Good” are often confused. Here’s a pretty (ahem) good example of correct usage, thanks to Flo and Friends.

Here’s the short version of the rule:

Good is an adjective. It describes things.
Well, is an adverb. It tells how.

And of course, as with many rules in English, the rule has exceptions.

Well is an adjective when you’re talking about health.
Good is a noun when you’re talking about morals.

So there you have it.

Using an apostrophe in “its” to show possessive is bad, and fairly common in the illiterate set. But at least they generally put the apostrophe inside, um, in The Barn. Like this. First panel. :

Makes me cringe to see that. At least he has the excuse of being a lot of bull (sorry). And it’s photon, not proton, but I digress.

Now when you have the possessive form on a noun that ends in “s,” (such as many plurals) the apostrophe goes after the “s.” You know that, right? Like this:

Both teams’ uniforms were blue.

Okay. So here’s the goof I hardly ever see:

It’s in the last panel, an apostrophe after the “s” in “its”! For shame! —I think maybe the cartoonist wasn’t fully awake. He used “A” instead of “I” in the second panel. (nb—looks like he fixed the “A” by the time I posted the comic)

PS—This isn’t even particularly humorous, but it’s on topic:

Not much of a lesson today, but slightly autobiographical.

I think, and have thought so for years, that “-s” being the ending on a singular verb is a little incongruous (weird), since it’s also the usual ending on plural nouns. I frequently see people whose first language isn’t English get this wrong. Can’t say as I blame them.

Anyway, here’s the Andertoons comic that reminded me about this.

That’s bad joke, not bad language, and herein lies a small lesson: Beware using nouns attributively. That’s when you use a noun as an adjective, such as in the title of this post. The reason to beware is because sometimes you can’t tell how that attributive noun is being used, as I point out in the first six words of this post.

(whew!) Finally, here’s the joke: