Nouns and verbs

I usually avoid talking about grammar in this blog, leaving that up to my colleague Deborah Capras, who knows much more about this kind of thing than I do.

But a recent trip to London inspired me to try my hand at the topic. What I would like you to do is to look at the following list of words and decide spontaneously whether they are nouns or verbs:

• action; ask; impact; miss; pocket; text; trouser

Easy? Most native speakers would struggle on at least one of these. One feature of English — and, no doubt, other languages, too — is that words change their grammatical function over time, or acquire new ones.

One common phenomenon is for nouns to become verbs. So, for example, the word "action", which most people probably think of as a noun, is now also used as a verb. Its meaning is given in the Oxford Dictionary of English as "take action on, deal with".

Likewise, "impact" is now commonly used, often together with "on", to mean "have a strong effect on". The example in the dictionary is: "High interest rates have impacted on retail spending." Another example is "text", which is used as a verb to mean "send (someone) a text message". You might say, "Could you text me the result of the negotiation?"

"Pocket" and "trouser" are also nice examples. "To pocket something" means to "put it in one's pocket" or, figuratively, to "take or receive (money or other valuables) for oneself, especially dishonestly". Trouser — a noun that we normally use only in the plural — is also used as a verb with the same meaning as "pocket".

I read an example recently in an obituary of Malcolm McLaren, the ex-manager of the Sex Pistols. The band, the obituary said, "trousered three lucrative record company contracts". Another example said two businessmen will "trouser the lion's share of the proceeds" from selling the online media-PR company Gorkana.

But this sort of grammatical traffic is not all one-way. Verbs can also become nouns, as the examples "ask" and "miss" show.

It is becoming very common in Britain to use "ask" as a synonym for "challenge", both in sport and business. It is usually combined with the adjective "big". I came across this example, relating to the London soccer club Fulham. Boss Roy Hodgson said: "It was our 54th game of the season, so for any team that's a big ask..."

I also read this example of the word "miss" used as a noun in the sense of "someone who is missed". Talking of Scott Parker, who was suspended for West Ham's game on 10 April, manager Gianfranco Zola said: "Scott is a big miss." (Note that adjective "big" again.)

Fascinating language, English, eh?