Re: Bizarre verbs

[Norman Grossblatt <ngrossbl -at- NAS -dot- EDU>]

Arlen P. Walker wrote:
>>I just ran across the verb "architecting" three times in this morning
mail. My stomach *still* hasn't settled back down. (Out of consideration
for your sensibilities, I left it out of the subject line.)

Can anyone offer a logical reason why this atrocity has been created?
Architects have been in business for centuries, and never felt that
"designing" was insufficient for their needs. Why do non-architects feel
the need to perpetrate something so hideous?<<

And Chuck Blessing responded:

Probably for reasons similar to the need to "author" web pages.

===================
Maybe, but people have been "authoring" material since way before "web"
referred to anything other than what a spider makes.  I won't permit it in
anything I'm editing.  The reasoning seems to be, "I am an author; anything
I do as an author must be authoring."  Most likely, "architect" as a verb
came about in the same way--laziness when it comes to explaining what
someone actually does.  People talk now about "authored articles" to
contrast them with articles written by anyone other than, say, the person
who actually did the research being written about.  It's dumb, but it's
here to stay.

Then, again, people have been doctoring and umpiring and temping and biking
for a long time.  Perhaps authoring and architecting aren't really any
worse--just a bit newer.

Norman Grossblatt, ELS(D); ngrossbl -at- nas -dot- edu

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