I’ve never been to Erie, Pennsylvania because I don’t trust alligators.
I saw the movie “Lake Placid,” about a 30-foot alligator that was eating people and I made a decision in my heart at that moment that I would never go to Erie, Pennsylvania. (What’s that? Lake Placid isn’t in Erie? Lake Erie is? That makes sense, I guess, but regardless, without Bill Pullman to protect me, who is the poor man’s Bill Paxton by the way, I’m not getting within a thousand miles of Erie.)
But in addition to their alligator problem, a friend from Erie recently told me something else that is plaguing Erie – the use of the word “gospel” as a verb.
I doubted her at first, after all, people who live under the constant threat of alligator attack tend to be a little shifty, but the more she explained the situation, the more I believed her. Apparently, in churches near her, people are saying sentences like this:
“Are we gospelling our towns the way we should be?”
“I want to gospel my neighborhood.”
“I personally believe that when it comes to reaching teens, we need to gospel like a hurricane.”
OK, I made up that last one, but the other two are true. And although they feel a little weird at first, maybe “gospel” is the new “love on.” Maybe instead of saying, “I loved on my friends at school,” 2009 was the year of saying, “I gospelled my friends at school.” Fair enough, but the year is almost over, which begs the question, what’s next? What word will we verb in 2010? I have three suggestions.
3 words we’re going to verb …
1. Community
In addition to being a surprisingly funny show starring the Soup’s Joel McHale, “Community” is the perfect word to verb. Think about it, we already love that word. We’re constantly trying to grow it or build it or foster it or nurture it. It only makes sense that we’d also verb it. How fun would it be to say, “I communitied my community.” And you could do that awesome reverse logic riddle sentence that pastors love to do, “Are we communitying the people we live near or simply living near the people in our community?” Ohh, that is deep, Jon Acuff, you just put a wrinkle on my brain!
2. Sabbatical
It’s been years since I was a trendhunter for a company out of LA, but I think I’m ready to come out of retirement today and predict that 2010 will be the year of the sabbatical. As life gets busier and louder, we’ll eventually see a return to simplicity and an “unplug” movement that preaches the need for sabbaticals, be they weekly or seasonally. And even if that doesn’t happen, I want to promise you right now, that I’m going to use the word “sabbatical” as a verb. If you call my phone and I’m off in the desert (for the purposes of this sentence let’s pretend my home state of Georgia has deserts) my voice mail is going to say, “Hi, this is Jon. I’m sabaticalling right now. Please leave a message and when I am done sabaticalling I will call you back.” Doesn’t that sound nice?
3. Relevant
I’m not even sure if the word “Relevant” is “Relevant” anymore, though I still dig the magazine, but if we’re done with it as an adjective, maybe it’s time we rolled it out as a verb. Imagine, if you will, this conversation.
Guy 1: Hey, Mike, what are you doing?
Guy 2: I’m relevanting my wardrobe as a worship leader.
Guy 1: What does that mean?
Guy 2: I bought some v-neck t-shirts. I’m going to relevant my shoes next and maybe even relevant my belt.
You laugh, or maybe you don’t laugh, maybe you shake your head instead, but regardless, at some point if we meet, please know that if I’m not busy sabbaticalling, I’m going to try to community you with a message I’ve relevanted and before you know it, you’ll be gospelled like you’ve never been gospelled before.
What words would you verb from the Christian vernacular?
Comments
Mirror Lake is closest to Lake Placid, NY. Lake Placid is a stone's throw further.
There's no way anyone can care about this, but that's what internetting is for, right?
My wife and I verbed our friend's last name. She's a really good listener.
So when we go out to dinner with someone, she'll remind me "Don't forget to Batstone."
Great post, but Bill Paxton is so the poor man's Bill Pullman.
There is actually a name for the noun-turned-verb. It's called an anthimeria.
Anthimerias have been around for quite some time (ex: "May I pencil you in?" or "Just email me"), and were used quite a bit by Shakespeare (ex: "I'll unhair thy head"- Antony & Cleopatra).
It was bound to happen that we would soon be gospeling.
Not to nitpick, but "freak on" is not the infinitive verb in the phrase "to get my freak on," "to get [sthg] on" is. The infinitive "to love on" is distinct from your other examples.
This doesn't really detract from your point. Just from any Ph.D in linguistics you're planning on getting.
Don't know how I missed this post the other day so I'm late on the comments.
I think we should turn psalm into a verb. Like when you really have a lot to say to God: "I've got to go to my prayer closet and psalm it up with God."