Grammar Girl here, today's topic is Verbification.

Last week, police used a taser on University of Florida student Andrew Meyer as they struggled

to remove him from the auditorium where Senator John Kerry was speaking.

The web has been filled with debates about the politics of the incident, but if you

of you have asked about the language of the incident, is it correct to say that Meyer

was tased or tasered, or should we hold that taser is a noun and say Meyer was zapped

by a taser?

In the heat of the moment, Meyer himself chose tased, shouting,

Don't taste me, bro, don't taste me!

Taser is actually a trademarked name, and the company Taser International also prefers

tays as the verb.

The company website contains multiple instances of phrases like, the subject was tased and incapacitated.

I also called the company, and a friendly customer service representative named John, confirmed

that when they talk about incidents internally, they say someone was tased.

On the other hand, a Google news search produced about 1,800 hits for tasered, and only

about 200 hits for tased, so popular opinion is definitely on the side of tasered.

I'm surprised by the popularity of tasered.

If you use laser as a model for taser, you should come up with tas as the verb, because

laser is the verb form of laser.

Both laser and taser are acronyms, so using laser as the model seems like the obvious choice.

Also even though it's an acronym, taser sounds a lot like a noun that's derived from a

verb.

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