This web site owes somebody a series of posts on the topic of frugality. Those posts have been funded, and will appear here on Thursdays. I have not whipped them into shape yet so here's a little reflection on word usage I dashed off some time ago, for this week. Frugality studies are forthcoming.
One of the most confusing things about English is the way English words (but only some English words) can undergo what is called "functional shift" (but only some "functional shift") in what is considered correct English.
A "functional shift" is the use of a noun as a verb, or a verb as a noun, or a noun as an adjective.
Native speakers of English might note something, or take note of something, or notify someone of something, or annotate something, or notate something--and those are different actions.
There is no general rule that tells native speakers of English when a "functional shift" will sound right or wrong. We just pick these things up by hearing them. Sometimes using a noun as a verb or vice versa is correct, and sometimes it sounds all wrong, like a way to identify a non-native speaker of English.
"Invite," for example. In the twentieth century when most of us were learning English, there was no such thing as "an invite." If we wanted to invite someone to do something, we sent the person an invitation. "An invite" was commonly found in nineteenth century fiction, in the sort of "dialect writing" where someone's incorrect English was supposed to be the joke. Fiction that was written to teach people etiquette used to describe characters who were very poor, or ignorant, or foreign, who were just thrilled to get "an invite" to dinner with someone who was better off. The character who got "an invite" would then proceed to do and say other things that displayed per ignorance, at the dinner. Depending on how snobbish the writer was, the character might be presented as a complete fool, or more sympathetically portrayed as someone who just didn't fit in with more sophisticated people.
That's why older English speakers still cringe when we read "an invite," or "an e-vite," today. Around the turn of the century computer users, who liked to abbreviate everything, started typing "invites" rather than "invitations." It's no longer absolute proof that English (or "standard" English) is not their native language but it calls to our minds the suggestion that they're making fun of people whose native language is not "standard" English. If you want to express altogether good intentions, you send people invitations.
"A read" is not really "standard" English either, but "a good read" has been accepted in colloquial English for a long time. "A fun read" is newer, but sounds colloquial rather than awkward. "A read" sounds wrong to many native speakers of English. It's new slang; I've seen it on the Internet but not heard it spoken in real life.
"A write" is another bit of computer users' slang that sounds clunky to native speakers of English. People at writing sites type "a write" with tongue in cheek, as a bit of new slang. Victorian novelists didn't make a cliche of members of the so-called lower class having enough education to try submitting "a write" to a teacher or editor. So "Thanks for sharing your write" doesn't sound like a reference to Victorian fiction, but it doesn't sound right. It sounds to me as if the person typing it isn't sure what the piece written was supposed to be... "Was that a letter? I wouldn't call it a poem, but did s/he think of it as a poem?" What participants in a formal class or informal writers' group submit, if you want not to offend them, are written pieces or pieces of writing or perhaps writings, writing samples, or writing exercises. Or, on the Internet, simply posts.
Some functional shifts have appealed to some native speakers of English who thought they ought to become standard. Would people use their leisure time more creatively, feel more satisfied with life, or even produce more or better folk art and folk music, if we said "to art" and "to music" instead of "to make art" or "to make music"? Some writers have hoped so. Would English speakers be less judgmental, or sound less judgmental, about other people's feelings and attitudes if English were one of the languages that don't have the "noun-verb-adjective" sentence pattern, but use adjectives as verbs? Would it be easier to make clear whether we meant "he felt or showed happiness at a given time" or "his entire life can be called a happy one" if we said, in the first case, "He happied"? Some competent writers have made cases for "They were on the porch, musicking" or "She happied when she read the letter," but these functional shifts have not caught on.
"To joy" came closest. A few hundred years ago poets did sometimes use "joy" where "enjoy" became standard. The only really well known example of this word usage that is still around is the English version of the Bach chorale, "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," which contains the line "I joy to call Thee mine." This is one of the lines that are accepted because they are traditional in songs or poems, but would be less acceptable in speech or writing. People who sing "I joy to call Thee mine," in a traditional hymn, would raise their eyebrows if they read "I joy to call you my friend" in a letter.
"A swear" was occasionally used to mean "an offensive word" in the twentieth century--"he said a swear"--but this usage was perceived as childish. Children who heard and repeated an offensive word were scolded or punished for "swearing" or "using 'swear' words" even when the word in question was not used in "frivolous swearing." "Frivolous swearing" used apparently to be a more common way of using English to offend people than it is now. People apparently used to say things like "By God, that was a good meal" just because it was offensive, in the same way they'd say "Then I went to f'ing lunch" today. "By God" was, in such cases, frivolous swearing such as Jesus taught His followers not to do in first-century Greek, which apparently had many analogs to "by God" referring to the hundreds of different "gods" Greek Pagans recognized. Technically speaking, the offensive word in "That was a d'd good meal" is a profane word rather than a "swear' word, and the offensive word in "That was a f'ing good meal" is an obscene word rather than a "swear" word. All of them are of course things native speakers of English say with the intention of being offensive and identifying themselves as habitually angry, bad-tempered, unpleasant individuals. "That was a good meal" is what a native speaker of English who is not habitually angry would say.
Often a functional shift is used in one context but not other possible contexts, in English. Scott Adams often uses "a tell." All native speakers of English know that "True is the tale that I tell of my travels"--we can call the travelling we have done or are doing "travels," but we have to call the telling we have done or are doing a "tale," not "tells" or a "tell." (And we say "my travels," not "my travel," even in reference to one single journey...but "my travel" could refer to a person's whole history of travelling, so that the singular word could refer to more different events than the plural word. Are we completely confused yet?) So "a tell" is something different from "a tale." In this particular case "a tell" is old show-business slang for what a larger number of English speakers would call "a giveaway," meaning the bit of someone's behavior that tells observers (or "gives the person away") when someone is thinking or noticing something. "The way Donald Trump's voice rose on that sentence is the tell that he was lying" is more logical, more literal, than "The way Donald Trump's voice rose on that sentence is the giveaway that he was lying," but "giveaway" is still closer to being "standard" English. However, during the twentieth century hypnotists successfully upgraded their image from being a class of mountebanks who often sold useless or toxic patent medicines to being a class of psychologists, lower in status than PhD researchers or MD's specializing in psychiatry, but at least as respectable as counsellors or therapy group leaders. Accordingly, when Adams uses "the tell" as hypnotists' jargon, he's making it a higher-status alternative to "the giveaway." This would not have worked in previous centuries. It may work now. "That's a tell" is not yet standard English, but it's the kind of high-status deviation from standard English that may become standard English in the future.
"To note" is used when someone makes either a mental or a literal note of something for their own use, "He noted that they were running low on paper towels." "Noting" can sometimes extend into writing: "As Shakespeare noted in Romeo and Juliet, students often show a lack of enthusiasm for homework." Mental "noting" may involve a little more attention than simply "noticing," but a "notice" is posted more publicly and formally than a private "note" handed to a friend. This kind of variation in word usage developed over centuries of history and was not deliberately planned to confuse language learners, though language learners could hardly be blamed for thinking it was.
"A do" is one (or two) things, "ado" is another thing, and "a deed" is yet another thing. Most things people do are deeds. "A do" used to be slang for a party, and, after most people had forgotten that bit of slang, reappeared as slang for a hairstyle. "Ado" became acceptable even in written English, as a word for a state of unrest, confusion, distraction, excitement, and/or bustling about among a group of people, because Shakespeare used it/ "To-do" is a variant from. In casual conversation these words are likely to be used when the level of activity rises, sometimes in a good way, as when people decide to restore an old house or a store runs a big clearance sale.
What a person sings is always "a song." If some people stand still and sing, and others stand or sit still and listen, different words might be used depending on the formality of the event. It might be a "sing-along," a show, a performance, a concert, a recital. "A sing" is rarely used when the event takes place within a traditional culture that believe singing has special spiritual or magical powers; it seems, when I think about it, that I've seen sentences like 'The tribal healers came in for a sing" only in reference to Navajo people.
What is given is always "a gift," but if it's made by hand the effect of its having been worked on might be "the work," or "the handwork," sometimes "the needlework," "the brushwork," or "the work" of whatever other tools or techniques were used. Ornamental work can be either "worked" or "wrought"; the use of "wrought" tends to reflect the influence of "wring" and describe things with scrolled, rolled, or twisted effects, which is why James Thurber's joke about someone who "wrote, or wrought, a piece of writing--it sounded wrought to me" is funny.
What is taken is not usually "a take" or "the take," unless the speaker is asserting that the person taking it is "on the take," an old slang phrase that used to be associated with Irish-Americans whose energy and good work allowed them to get ahead of English-Americans who had started out with more and made less of it. Confusingly, "on the take" was usually used with disapproval, because people who used it were often expressing the Deadly Sin of Envy. "A take" is used now, in a neutral sense, to mean one photograph or video sequence from a group of several that were "taken" or "shot" in a quick sequence. A photographer might display "the best take" in the batch; the video sold after a movie has had its chance in theatres may contain "out-takes" that were cut out of the movie version due to time limits. In colloquial English, "a take" can also refer to an opinion that differs from others' opinions because of someone's different position or experience: "My take on what Donald Trump said about the value of the house, as someone who used to live in New York City, is that everyone up there used to inflate the value of any house, because the local real estate prices were so inflated."
Occasionally a word has meant so much to so many that one can find examples of its being used in almost any way a person can think of. As if it weren't confusing enough that "to love" can refer either to the practice or to the emotional feeling of any combination of admiration, affection, loyalty, benevolence, friendship, compassion, sympathy, enjoyment, preference, infatuation, and other things, either a thing or a person loved may be "a love," especially of a particular individual: "She was his love," or "Astronomy was his love." The variety of use of the word "love" has prompted some people, even lovers, to say that the word has been so much used that it's lost its meaning. As a remedy some English teachers used to teach, as a rule of grammar, that we should at least use "like" when the object of admiration, affection, etc., is an inanimate material object. One does not love strawberries, they preached; one can only like them. Other English speakers feel that the difference between liking and loving is a matter of enthusiasm. Others feel that it has more to do with the quality of the feeling or relationship expressed--that liking things means merely enjoying them, while loving them means serving their needs or interests, so a gourmet likes strawberries but a gardener loves them. Then there is Internet-specific usage, where promoting or advertising things can be regarded as serving their interests, so product reviewers "love" the products reviewed, while "liking" things tends to mean, specifically, clicking on a button to award points to things that may or may not get any further benefit from the points awarded. And then...native speakers of English bicker and "correct" one another's use of "love" often, but at least they always seem to enjoy the debate.
