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"Bird" as a Verb (1 Viewer)

In any case, cwbirder, your friend is talking nonsense. There is no 'Academie' or 'Academia' that determines prescriptive rules on the English language (thankfully). The OED, Websters or Chambers or whoever have no authoritative remit...they are merely reporting on changes in usage, rather than legislating. English is flexible and has adapted to different cultures and groups worldwide in different ways. Here, 'Bird' as a verb is certainly used in its current sense only by 'Birdwatchers'. That doesn't mean it's wrong, only that I must use 'Birdwatching' if speaking to a non-Birder. Obviously 'Bird' as a verb has been in use for centuries, albeit with different meanings, i.e. to kill 'em, not just look at 'em. So what...a verb changes meaning slightly over the years. Fancy that;).

Couldn't agree more, but English usage is so bound up with class and educational level as to trigger all sorts of insecurities. Thus all the fuss.
 
Besides, for our original poster in the US, it is in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary as a verb anyhow.

Yes, as was pointed out in my post, the second in this thread, it is in American dictionaries in the sense used on this forum, and has been for at least two decades.

[EDIT: make that over three decades; just checked my 1982 American Heritage (one of my favorite dictionaries), and it also has the same def. My 1950 unabridged Webster's lacks the definition, however.]
 
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Three comments: 1) my Oxford Advanced Learners from 1974 does not include this as a verb. Whether a more complete (unabridged?) version of the dictionary would have contained it at that time I do not know.
2) When I last lived in Denmark in 2002 we did not have a corresponding verb (at fugle?) but most knew the English form "to bird".
3) The original (scientific) bird studying did use shotguns rather than binoculars. I guess that any optical instrument was either extremely poor quality, much more expensive than a shotgun, or both, when we go back 120 years.

Niels
 
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Brings to mind a Calvin and Hobbes strip about "verbing", i.e. the tendency to take nouns and start using them as verbs. Maybe your friend agrees that "verbing weirds language":-O

Mind you...I hate it when I hear 'action' used as a verb. Particularly if it's 'going forward';).
 
Mind you...I hate it when I hear 'action' used as a verb. Particularly if it's 'going forward';).

Christ, that's a new one on me! But then I'm very old-fashioned in my habits of speech, "impact" used as a verb still setting my teeth on edge after all these years
 
Mind you...I hate it when I hear 'action' used as a verb. Particularly if it's 'going forward';).

The irritatingness of that formation cannot be underestimated - which of course should be 'overestimated' (a typical illiterate BBC usage. BBC reporters are now one of the prime sources of illiteracy in the modern world). Way more than anyone else, I find.

Another one that really irritates me is 'protest' used to mean protest against - the exact opposite of the correct original meaning ('testify in favour of, assert' : "I protest my innocence."). What people hundreds of years hence will think we all meant to say is beyond imagining.

(/old fogey)

Cheers
 
The irritatingness of that formation cannot be underestimated - which of course should be 'overestimated' (a typical illiterate BBC usage. BBC reporters are now one of the prime sources of illiteracy in the modern world). Way more than anyone else, I find.

Another one that really irritates me is 'protest' used to mean protest against - the exact opposite of the correct original meaning ('testify in favour of, assert' : "I protest my innocence."). What people hundreds of years hence will think we all meant to say is beyond imagining.

(/old fogey)

Cheers

The only good thing to come out of this horrendous bastardisation of the language is business lingo bingo, a game that has got me through many a meeting!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/17_06_08_bingocard.pdf
 
It's fascinating how soon the veneer of dispassionate scientific detachment cracks in these discussions. We--some of us anyway--start out wrapped in the mantel of linguistic science where usage is everything and prescription has no place at all. Until, that is, we start hitting usages we don't like--really really don't like--and up in flames we go, condemning them in the most angry and intemperate terms. Mea culpa! You too, Sancho. ;)
 
So, going forward, are we all singing from the same hymn sheet when we agree to action the use of 'bird' as a verb?
 
I think both linguistic description and prescription are valuable activities and inform each other. I also wouldn't characterize dictionaries as simply being descriptions of usage. They standardize “correct” spellings, and categorize usage as being "standard" or "non-standard." That is the essence of prescriptivism. Moreover, prescribing standards is essential to language. You don't have a common language unless people speak largely the same way. This doesn't mean we can't disagree with a dictionary of course, but I think we should be cautious about doing so.

That said, I agree that dictionaries should not necessarily be viewed as settling the question in this instance. (E.g. even if they didn't have the definition in dispute). The reason is that "bird" in the sense used by birders is a specialist or technical term. General dictionaries don't purport to completely describe specialist language, that's why we have specialist dictionaries for medicine, law, philosophy, etc. There are also, of course, birders' dictionaries, e.g.

https://www.amazon.com/Birders-Dict...505222626&sr=8-1&keywords=birder's+dictionary

Interestingly, that book has the definition of "bird" in dispute in this thread on its cover.
 
What about the use of 'bring' mainly by Americans it has to be said, when they should say 'take'.

'I'll bring you on holiday next year'.....you won't, you'll take me. The use of bring is linked to time and place, the here and now is bring, a future or geographically distant place is take.

Accents and spellings are one thing but this is being used completely, wrongly and what happens in America and on American tv, gets picked up for wider usage, mainly by Europeans who speak English as a second language.

Re 'verbifying' words, that is at least a derivation and progression of a root word, very different to using the wrong word!

Here are a few lines from the BBC today about the culling of Bison.

It is seeking volunteers to help cull a herd of bison in the famous gorge, which it says are damaging park resources.

About 600 bison live in the area, but experts say that could hit 1,500 in a decade if their numbers are not controlled.

A lottery system will be used to choose the shooters.

The bison are owned by the state of Arizona, and are descended from animals brought there in the 1900s.


The word used should surely be 'taken', they were either 'taken there' or if the person was reporting from the actual place, 'brought here'.

I don't think it's too much to ask, that people who write for a living, presumably in their native language, should be able to do so competently?


A
 
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'I'll bring you on holiday next year'.....you won't, you'll take me. The use of bring is linked to time and place, the here and now is bring, a future or geographically distant place is take.

erm......

"when you visit me next year can you bring your telescope"

"please take that thing away from here right now"

bring = towards, take = away, nothing to do with time and place, or here and now
 
erm......

"when you visit me next year can you bring your telescope"

"please take that thing away from here right now"

bring = towards, take = away, nothing to do with time and place, or here and now


My original point, which your response supports, regardless, is that an American might say 'bring that to James' when he should say 'take that to James'.

The article I quoted, also has the wrong usage of 'brought' when used in conjunction with 'there'



A
 
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It's fascinating how soon the veneer of dispassionate scientific detachment cracks in these discussions. We--some of us anyway--start out wrapped in the mantel of linguistic science where usage is everything and prescription has no place at all. Until, that is, we start hitting usages we don't like--really really don't like--and up in flames we go, condemning them in the most angry and intemperate terms. Mea culpa! You too, Sancho. ;)

I have been accused of many things in my life, Fugl, but consistency was never one of them!;)

BTW...'Bring' and 'Take' are often used interchangeably here as well. It depends on the context, and sometimes confuses me. Obviously if I'm in a restaurant I say 'Waiter, bring me a crocodile sandwich and make it snappy'. And I ask him to 'take ' the dishes 'away'. Some song may 'bring back memories', but do they 'take' or 'bring' me 'back' to my youth? And what should I do with my mother-in-law....'bring' or 'take' her 'birding'? And my friend 'took' me to the pub....or maybe he 'brought' me there....
(P.S. maybe we should be sent to RF before this gets ugly;))
 
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What about the use of 'bring' mainly by Americans it has to be said, when they should say 'take'.

'I'll bring you on holiday next year'.....you won't, you'll take me. The use of bring is linked to time and place, the here and now is bring, a future or geographically distant place is take.

Accents and spellings are one thing but this is being used completely, wrongly and what happens in America and on American tv, gets picked up for wider usage, mainly by Europeans who speak English as a second language.

Re 'verbifying' words, that is at least a derivation and progression of a root word, very different to using the wrong word!

Here are a few lines from the BBC today about the culling of Bison.

It is seeking volunteers to help cull a herd of bison in the famous gorge, which it says are damaging park resources.

About 600 bison live in the area, but experts say that could hit 1,500 in a decade if their numbers are not controlled.

A lottery system will be used to choose the shooters.

The bison are owned by the state of Arizona, and are descended from animals brought there in the 1900s.


The word used should surely be 'taken', they were either 'taken there' or if the person was reporting from the actual place, 'brought here'.

I don't think it's too much to ask, that people who write for a living, presumably in their native language, should be able to do so competently?


A

I think you should realize that just like we think there is such a verb as "to bird" other usages change as well. It will not be the first time in history that a word got a different meaning or even changed to the exact opposite meaning.

Niels
 
I think if we can 'bird' (which I think we should be able to, if for no other reason than it sounds indefinably cooler than the 'birdwatching' I used to do as a youth)...then we ought to be able to 'bring' or 'take' along a friend when we do so in an interchangeable manner.

Although I have my pet hate Atlanticisms ('combo' being pretty close to top of the list), I don't support the recurring narrative expressed on BF that the English language (as written / spoken by the English) is either intrinsically superior to, or under threat from, American cultural imperialism. It is an unfortunate characteristic of the English to assume that their version of the language is the only 'correct' one. American English contains many words and spellings which can claim at least as old a provenance as those currently used in UK - 'sidewalk', 'turnpike', 'gray' etc. It seems a little churlish to focus on the neologisms - the combos and the 'actioning', especially when we are equally enthusiastic adopters on this side of the pond.

I think in doing so we overlook a greater threat to cultural and linguistic diversity on our own doorstep, which is the loss of regional accents and vocabulary within the UK, promoted by the pervasiveness of domestic media and its 'estuarine' southern English accents. I want to continue to get a 'spelk' in my finger (well, I don't really, they can be quite painful...), and describe something as 'femer' rather than fragile.
 
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