Nouning a Verbed Noun

Question

Condoleeza Rice in her testimony today used the noun "taskings". The noun "task" was verbed into "to task with" to mean "to give the task of": "The officer was tasked with beating in the heads of demonstrators." (Why "tasked with", and not "tasked of"? I suppose it is analagous to "saddled with".) Then this verb was nouned into "tasking" to mean "the tasks that one has been given": "The taskings of the officers included beating in heads, coercing confessions, and enforcing the speed limit."
Are there other nouns that have been verbed and then renouned?

Mike Nitabach

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Condoleeza Rice[/nq]
Condoleezza. Her parents derived it from the Italian "con dolcezza" (with sweetness), which accounts for the double z, but makes it harder to explain why a c was removed and another e was added.
[nq:1]in her testimony today used the noun "taskings". The noun "task" was verbed into "to task with" to mean "to ... mean "the tasks that one has been given" Are there other nouns that have been verbed and then renouned?[/nq]
I see that you cite "tasking" as a nouned verbed noun. Isn't this cheating, though? The original noun and the verbed noun are "task", and "tasking" is a word different in spelling as well as in part of speech. The "-ing" ending clearly indicates that the word comes from the verb. What's more, the use of "tasking" which you quote is the verb's gerund; it acts as a noun syntactically but no more implies that the verb has been nouned than a participle implies that the verb has been adjectived. If you allow this, there must be many examples.

The following are better, because "-ion" and "-age" are not active suffixes in English, and they *do* imply that nouns has been formed from the verb.
act v -> action n -> action v (as in "please action this for me") coin n -> coin v (as in "to coin a phrase") -> coinage n. lever n and v
-> leverage n power gained by using a lever;
financial power gained over a resource that is greater than the one you own
-> leverage v borrow, relying on future income to cover interest repayment

disable v -> disabled a -> disable v (from

Do these examples satisfy you? I felt unhappy as not all the words in the derivation chain had the same spelling. Therefore from now on in this post (there's an example!), I impose the rule that all the words in the derivation chain have the same spelling.
I expect there are quite a few cases where the second noun denotes the action of doing the verb, e.g.
iron n cloth-smoother
-> vt to press (cloth)
-> n (as in "give these shirts an iron")
Here are some more interesting examples.
batten (see http://www.tradgirl.com/rc/hits2002.htm ) coach (see http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/C09.html ):
n horse-drawn vehicle
-> v drive a coach
-> n coachman; tutor
creep v (imperfect and ppl "crept")
-> n unpleasant person
-> v (regular) act like a creep to someone (as in
"he creeped me out!")
date n specified day
-> vt to go out with (someone)
-> n someone with whom one goes out
down n upland tract of pastureland
-> prep and adv
-> n low place, and the Am football sense
Google n a search engine
-> google v to search using Google
-> n a Google search
initial a
-> n (as in "my initials are RS")
-> v (as in "initial this document")
invalid adj
-> n
-> adj (as in "invalid care allowance")
patient adj
-> n (as in "nurses care for patients")
-> adj (as in "patient care")
post n system for collecting, sorting and delivering mail -> vt to put (something) into a postbox;
-> vt to put a text into an electronic BBS aka newsgroup aka forum -> n such a text
sanction n approval
-> v allow
-> n allowed punishment
-> v punish in an allowed way
One thing I wasn't sure of is how to decide whether a noun derived from a verb derived from a noun counts as a separate noun (and is thus a genuine nouned verbed noun) or is merely a new sense of the original noun. For example I thought this one was iffy, because the new noun sense, though undeniably born after the old one was, is too close to it in meaning to count as a separate noun:
park n enclosed area of land where animals are kept for being hunted -> vt to put (animals) into such land
-> vt to bring (a vehicle) to a stop on an area designated for the purpose
-> n an area of land to park cars on
I expect that people could argue cases for more examples, using dates of earliest citations of each sense to prove that the derivation path was n 1 -> v -> n 2, rather than that the new noun is merely a new sense of the existing noun (as exemplified above), that the noun senses are different nouns which derive from the verb, or that the verb derives from the second noun sense.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Condoleeza Rice in her testimony today used the noun "taskings". The noun "task" was verbed into "to task with" to ... in heads, coercing confessions, and enforcing the speed limit." Are there other nouns that have been verbed and then renouned?[/nq]
Lots, I'd think. Looking at a list of verbed nouns from an earlier discussion,
URL:http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=uy9v9vxiu.fsf%40hpl.hp.com

these have been subsequently renouned with specialized senses

boxing, schooling, shipping, cooking, crossing, doings, fathering, landing, mothering, stoning, turning, wording
and all have gerunds related to instances of the activity. With "fishing" and "sailing" it's hard to tell which way the original derivation went. (The on-line MWCD10 doesn't have dates anymore, so I can't check the order of things like "covering".)

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http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Condoleeza Rice in her testimony today used the noun "taskings". The noun "task" was verbed into "to task with" to ... one has been given": "The taskings of the officers included beating in heads, coercing confessions, and enforcing the speed limit."[/nq]
Since 'tasks' would work just as well, it seems like an unnecessary renounation.
[nq:1]Are there other nouns that have been verbed and then renouned?[/nq]
Some are quite well noun.

john

Usenet · Answer

Michael Nitabach:
[nq:2]Condoleeza Rice in her testimony today used the noun "taskings". ... beating in heads, coercing confessions, and enforcing the speed limit."[/nq]
John O'Flaherty:
[nq:1]Since 'tasks' would work just as well, it seems like an unnecessary renounation.[/nq]
But if "to task" means "to assign the task", then a tasking is a task that's one's responsibility because it was explicitly assigned, rather than because it follows from one's general terms of work. If the officer is ordered to "stop the bad guys by any means necessary", they might view beating in heads as a task, but it isn't a tasking. If they're specifically instructed to beat in some heads, then it is.

So the distinction from "task" does seem useful. The next question is whether there is a useful distinction from "assignment".
Mark Brader, Toronto > "Every new technology carries with it an opportunity (Email Removed) > to invent a new crime" Laurence A. Urgenson

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Condoleeza Rice in her testimony today used the noun "taskings". ... beating in heads, coercing confessions, and enforcing the speed limit."[/nq]
[nq:1]Since 'tasks' would work just as well, it seems like an unnecessary renounation.[/nq]
"Renounation" doesn't sound right. "Re-nouning" does.
[nq:2]Are there other nouns that have been verbed and then renouned?[/nq]
I'd have written "re-nouned," because of the existence of "renowned."
[nq:1]Some are quite well noun. john[/nq]
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1] Are there other nouns that have been verbed and then renouned?[/nq]
Yes, all of them. Any noun can be verbed, and the verbs' gerunds are all nouns. That's how English has always worked.

I gave all the houseplants a good watering today.
\P. Schultz

Nouning a Verbed Noun

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