Grimmer Girl here, I'm a neon fugitive, and you can think of me as your friendly guide

to the English language, writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.

Today, I have a meeting middle about verbing nouns and nouning verbs.

And a quick and dirty tip about whether you should say it is I or it is me.

Does it make you cringe whenever someone says they tasked someone with something?

Do you scratch your head when someone wants to know what the ask is or said that you

need a solve for a problem?

Do you run the other way when someone says they want to dialogue with you?

If so, you're probably like our listener named Alan, who called in about a problem he

was having at work.

People keep hijacking nouns and turning them into verbs and turning them into nouns.

The audio is a little spotty, but to paraphrase, he said that his colleagues often use solution

as a verb, as in, noun is not the time to solution this.

But then they'll also use solve as a noun, as in, we have this problem and it's been really

difficult to find the solve.

You probably associate this sort of usage more with doberts pointy hair to boss than with

Shakespeare.

But it may surprise you to learn that some of these words are centuries old.

And in fact, we're used by the bard himself.

In Shakespeare's play, Loves Labor's Lost, the Princess of France says, but now to task

the tasker.

And in time and of Athens, Appamantus says, dust dialogue with thy shadow?

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