image from pinterest.com
Verbiage Veritas
“Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an action
before it is a place.”--Martha Graham.
Verbing can be exhausting.
I have no trouble jamming or troubling,
but hurricaning and lightninging
is much harder than
thundering and storming.
I can’t be running these days,
so I spend time experting
about film & poetics.
In this media crazy age,
less folks enjoy jawing,
preferring jousting
with their thumbs.
I’m informed that I must
be emoting not emotioning,
and romancing
rather than romanticing.
One drives a car,
because caring
morphs into affectioning.
I could be punching and kicking
because knuckling and toeing
become murky, and fisting
is something sexual.
I like gardening, but radishing
carroting,
onioning,
meloning,
peaing,
corning,
wheating,
mustarding,
are all feral verbs that snag
on your tongue and sting your ears.
I can be standing and balancing
but erecting strikes a different tone.
I am a knowing person,
but perhaps not knowledgable,
often annoying
but never jocularing,
or ponderousing.
Friending is now more acceptable,
but enemying or adversarying
is harder to pull off.
Meanwhile,
I will continue poeting
on my merry way.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub MTB
16 comments:
This is very amusing and brilliant, your observations on verbing! Very well-written and raw. Your writing style is truly a treat.
This is so brilliant and funny... love how you can make two different verbs with different meaning with just a small change.
This made me smile a lot - and you pick up on lots of idiosyncrasies of language here.
So funny Glenn! You made so many noun/verbs, I may have to borrow a few for my poem!
super witty!
feel like I've been nounised ... appreciate your references to social mediaering
We turned stone into a verb and look what happened to it! Loved your clever, clever list!!
Poeting on your merry way indeed brother — but no peeing in the garden...
Yes, let's friend!
Clever! hahaha
Cleverly done.
Dang! "all feral verbs that snag on your tongue and sting your ears." A fun riff.
Nice verb-divvying, Glenn. I saw lots of feral veggying but not potatoing.
Yes indeed; BLAMMO GOOD! What a pacemaker! Salute.
This was great and had me smiling throughout
The first things that hit me were the brilliant image and the alliterative title, Glenn, and I knew I was in for a treat, which was confirmed by the Martha Graham quotation. You obviously had fun with this exhausting exercise. I love:
‘…hurricaning and lightninging
is much harder than
thundering and storming’
and the ‘feral verbs that snag / on your tongue and sting your ears.’
I agree with Sarah, you picked up on lots of idiosyncrasies of language, which made me smile a lot too.
A very good illustration of why you can't make verbs out of just any old noun. Funny, and clever.
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