PUC-RS Verão 2012

INSTRUCTION: Answer question in relation to text.

TEXT 

If you are one of more than 600 million people on
Facebook, it’s likely that you regularly friend (and
sometimes unfriend) others. This extending of language
– verbing of nouns – brings growing pains. Some rail
[5] against it.

Why verb a noun when a perfectly serviceable verb ‘to
befriend’ is already a part of the language? But language
grows with need, and ‘to friend’ someone online is not
necessarily the same as ‘to befriend’. Each new verb or
[10] noun adds a new shade to the mosaic of the language.

And it happens all the time. We have the verb ‘serve’
and the noun ‘service’, but we extend ‘service’ to use it
as a verb again because ‘to service’ is not necessarily
the same as ‘to serve’.

[15] Put new verbs into service in your conversation and
writing, at work, home, and beyond. Friend them into your
vocabulary, and don’t worry about those who complain
against the verbing of nouns. It has been going on for
quite a while now.

[20] The Oxford English Dictionary has the first citation for
the word friend as a verb from the year 1225. In fact, ‘to
friend’ has an older pedigree than ‘to befriend’ (1559).

There was no Facebook, no Web, no computers, not
even electricity back in the 13th century. But there was
[25] language, and a need to stretch it to fill a need. And long
after Facebook is gone, we’ll continue using language
in ways that fit. Here’s to verbing of nouns (and nouning
of verbs)!

(http://wordsmith.org/awad, 468, June 19, 2011)