Grammar girl here, today we're going to talk about why kids say they're versing another

team instead of playing another team, and whether it's okay.

So Ron Am wrote, quote, the phenomena of using the word verse instead of verses seems relatively

recent.

But to this 56-year-old's ears, it's driving me nuts.

I first started hearing it about 15 years ago when my sons were interested in WrestleMania.

Staying their friends would be talking about who was wrestling who and would use the

word verse.

I would gently correct them and tell them the correct word is verses, Latin, for against.

It seems like suddenly this misusage is rampant.

I'm actually hearing professional sportscasters making this error, unquote.

In Jackie also provided an example.

She wrote, quote, before a soccer game, my kids say, we're versing such and such team.

I'd love to know what kids started using the verb form of verses, but it certainly

stuck, unquote.

When I first started getting questions about versing to mean playing, I thought it might

be a regionalism, like how people are more likely to say spendy and Oregon than they

are in Florida.

So I surveyed the people on the Grammar Girl Facebook page, and what I found instead

is that it's an age-related phenomena.

People say versing everywhere, but they're nearly always kids.

So it's not unheard of among older people.

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