What was most interesting and new to me was that the argument wasn't just about "verbing nouns," but also about "contact" being too vague. People argued you should say someone "called," "wrote," or "told" someone else something.
Part of me wonders if the increase in the number of ways we have to communicate helped drive the acceptance of "contact" as a verb. Now we can also fax, text, and message, for example. 2/X
Acceptance has been gradual, however, so if all these new ways to communicate were part of what led to greater acceptance, it was probably only a small part.
In 1988, 65% of the panel said this sentence was fine, and in 2004, it was up to 94%.
Check out the whole podcast (episode 945) to learn more about the usage panel and what happened to the American Heritage Dictionary. 3/3
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(We're still working on the transcript.)
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