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Subject:Re: "The new way to 'office'"??? From:Bill Sullivan <bsullivan -at- SMTPLINK -dot- DELTECPOWER -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 13 Feb 1996 08:23:05 -0800
Attention, Word Junkies, real and wannabe. See Webster's Third New
Unabridged Dictionary. Office is an intransitive verb. (Your
standard office dictionary probably overlooks it, I know.)
Webster quotes the following sentence from Ernst Waldinger: "The old
Vienna doctors have always had the habit of officing in their homes."
Bill Sullivan
bsullivan -at- deltecpower -dot- com
San Diego, California
>>> Huber, Mike <Mike -dot- Huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com> - 2/13/96 6:39 AM
>>>
Remember - "Verbing weirds language" (Calvin-actually Bill Waterson)
In another context, the sentence has a completely different meaning -
perhaps Kinko's is a good place to get all those pre-voted ballots
made up?
The "part of speech" attribute of a word carries information. When
you throw that away, the result is a sentence that contains less
information, often in the form of an ambiguity.
----------
From: Yvonne DeGraw[SMTP:yvonne -at- silcom -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 1996 4:51 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list TEC
Subject: "The new way to 'office'"???
Have any of you noticed the new Kinko's ad slogan -- "The new way to
office"?
"Office" as a verb? I guess it's just an advertising thing, and it
did catch my attention. I'm generally in favor of verbizing nouns
where a useful purpose is served, and I am part of their "small
office, home office" target market.
But, this new verb they are proposing sounds so odd. I suppose you
could argue that it is specific to white-collar work, while the verb
"work" is non-specific.
Yvonne DeGraw, Technical Services o Web Authoring
yvonne -at- silcom -dot- com o Technical Writing http://www.silcom.com/~yvonne/ o Database Design and Publishing
Tel: 805/683-5784 o User-Interface Design
