Sentenceworks Blog

I have an adult student who has come to me for tutoring.  Although his spoken English is excellent, his written English requires some work.  He came to Canada recently, and just signed himself up for some courses at the local college.  He’s taking, amongst other courses, Business Communication and Introduction to English Literature.

We had a writing problem this week.  The problem involved verbing.

I love messing around with language, tweaking it so it works the way I want it to.  In general conversation, creative writing, letter writing, I appreciate it when people take liberties with English (it’s not really as sacred as we make it out to be).  I may throw things at you for saying “doable”, but the girl who told me Hamlet was “all angsty” got bonus points because I saw her struggle to find the appropriate word.

Verbing, however, is like a virus.  It’s being taught - and encouraged - extensively in business writing courses.  It has spread to common conversation.  It’s even oozing its way into academia.

Don’t verb when you’re writing academic papers.  Do not reference or access or calendarize or suggestionize.  (N.B.  Don’t even utilize… unless you actually mean utilize.)

So, my student asks, why is it good in one English but not in the other? Huh.  I can’t answer that.  I am insufficiently educated in the evolution of Business English; I don’t know why a memo is improved by the addition of newly-created words.  I do know that formal and academic writers disapprove of it because it forces the reader to pause and consider the new word rather than continuing to read the information.

Here’s a short article giving some tips on business writing.  If you’ve included any of these ideas in your academic writing, remove them.  Should you be in a position where you must write for both worlds, ensure you are… bilingual and can use the appropriate language for each.