When nouns become verbs

Many English words can be both nouns and verbs, due to a word-building process known as conversion. We can swim or have a swim, we can look at something or have a look, and we use a phone to phone somebody. And this is all done with no addition of prefixes or suffixes.

In some languages, verbs are conjugated – their form changes to express tense or person, for instance. Even in the infinitive, they show characteristic verb endings that make them easy to identify. 

Although English verbs may be inflected too, as in ‘Sue texts me every day,’ they often aren’t. As a result, a noun and a verb sometimes look exactly the same, and we have to rely on word order to realise that work is a noun in ‘I have a lot of work,’ and a verb in ‘I work a lot.’

 ‘We bottled the wine last week.’

Turning nouns into verbs is a common phenomenon in English, and it can be a bit puzzling at first. But the resulting verbs are usually a very efficient and economical way of conveying information. That’s why you google a name – when you search for information about it using Google – or email a friend – when you send them an email. 

What do you do, then, if you milk a cow, water the plants or tag a photo?