Legal Writing

Verbification at Work

By Maeve Maddox

Trudy Ripka writes

I have come across recipes which are made into healthier versions of the original.  My problem is accepting the word “HEALTHIFIED”.  There is a particular site which uses this and a lot of the readers dislike the term; I am included.  This could be a case of “verbing adjectives”.

Whatever we call it, something is going on. Apparently just about any word can be turned into an -ify verb and then back-formed into a -tion noun.

healthify and healthification:

?Healthified? Fluffy Orange Fruit Dip

?Healthified? Chicken Pot Pie

`Healthification’ and the Promises of Urban Space

Fit or Fad: The Healthification Of Starbucks Foodstuffs

greenify and greenification:

Greenify for Better Business

5 Ways to Greenify Your Home

How have you greenified your home?

The Greenification of Walmart

friendify and friendification:

You’ll now receive a “Friendifcation Notification”. . . when a member adds you to their friends list.

our current MySpace policy is to friendify anyone with an interesting looking avatar . . . If you get friendified by someone you don’t know, it’s probably because you have a cool avatar.

blogify and blogification:

Creativity Has Now Been Blogified

So we have blog-this and blog-that, basically everything has been blogified . . .

blogify: To dramatize or overexaggerate. To describe otherwise bland subjects in a horribly depressing and/or dramatic manner. To make dreary . . .– Urban Dictionary

I?m wondering when the schools are going to get around to grammifying their students. I?d say that a little grammification is in order.

Joking aside, use drives usage. When a word is felt to meet a need by a large number of speakers, it will find a place in the language. The word gentrification, for example, has won acceptance with the meaning

The process by which an (urban) area is rendered middle-class. –OED

The fate of these new -ify verbs is uncertain. Many of the writers who are using them are uncomfortable enough to enclose them in quotation marks. Writers and speakers who don?t want them to catch on can choose not to use them.

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on December 02, 2009 (boomark / email).