When did "train" become a verb?

It's like those Brits speak their own language, innit?

We'll just have to agree a pact so no one lands in hospital.

Ooh, this is along the lines of my husband saying “golf” is not a verb. “You play golf; you don’t golf.”

And, I really do want to train to….some favorite destinations this year! ; )

Frank you picked up on something I have wondered often in this forum. Maybe we all need to go to university?

When did "train" become a verb?

. The meaning "to travel by railway" is recorded from 1856.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/train

I don't know the answer, but I can add some things that I am wondering...

• when did British Airways become 'British Air'
• when did accommodation become 'lodging'?
• Isn't an 'Inn' somewhere you'd stay in the 1700s?
• Are fanny packs or ball caps really appropriate words to use in polite company?
• Are people getting tired arms from all the 'reaching out'?

I read lots of things on here that I find curious....but I manage to work it out.

When did hydrate/hydration replace thirst or drink?

The Oxford English Dictionary considers this to now be chiefly US usage, although it cites an example from the Pall Mall Gazette in 1888 (a London newspaper).

I see posters from the US using this lingo quite a bit and it really bugs me. Only someone who has never taken a train would use it as a verb.

Merriam-Webster recognizes "to go by train" as a definition for the word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/train

One of the cool things about languages is that they are dynamic, resulting in evolution over time. I feel like I have little choice now but to start using train as an intransitive verb in solidarity with the Rick Steves Forum members indulging in their linguistic freedom.

Long live the glorious fight against language oppression!

Wow! I am amazed that people have time to even notice this. Don't we have enough to do right now planning our trips?

Going forward, this could be the new paradigm.

Also, when did people begin to "do" a country or city instead of visiting it? An example is "you can do Rome in three days."

Language is transitioning, words constantly shoehorned to fit any situation. There are a number of sources on line for you to reference, or just google it yourselves. I blame Shakespeare, I do, that honey-tongued, rascally pajock.

Oh, Bets - CRINGE!

"Reach out" is the worst. What happened to words that reflect what you actually intend to do or did... Email, call, send a letter, dispatch a carrier pigeon, etc. Doubtful you reached out.

While buttering my bread while I trained to Paris, I googled this phenomenon called verbing and saw a quote from a linguistics professor that I had friended on Facebook. He said to chill because verbism has been done for centuries and it’s just a normal part of a language evolving.

" eateries" sets my teeth on edge

As an old fogie (and briefly an English major) I find it a bit jarring, as if there's a few words missing, and noting there is already a verb "to train" with a different meaning. The first time I saw it, I mused that "to car" or "to plane" were sure to follow. But you have to accept that language changes, and that's how people speak.

Many common words are both verbs and nouns. I'm guessing most were once mere nouns that later matured into verbs, just as "train" has done, though I suspect "sweep" and "lick" evolved in the other direction.

target
house
ride
fudge
run
nail
lick
sweep

I can’t resist adding my 2 cents to this thread. I am absolutely aware that languages evolve. However, I, personally, prefer not to be in the vanguard. I cringe when I read “me and my partner are . . . “. Likewise, “to ( or for) my husband and I.” Does anyone under 50 even know why those expressions are grammatically incorrect?
And while I’m venting, when did “gift” become a verb; and how does it differ from “give?”
@tdw Were you trying to be funny by misspelling grammar?
@stan Hold on to your hat. I’m sure that car and plane as verbs are coming. In fact I think I’ve already come across “plane” used as a verb. And really, if one can “bike” or “bicycle” somewhere, why not?

The kids today -- with the language and the hairstyles and the clothes and the music. Your mother and I don't do things like that. What are you, some kind of a gom?

[note that I'm using the Irish version of 'gom']

When? I believe it was in l982.

Rosalyn, Ok, but I draw the line at "to foot"

.....come to Tennessee where "pigged out" is a verb, as in "we pigged out on pizza." Another is "I BSed my way thru" such and such. So many words have become verbs, and, thus, evolves the English language.

I am kidding about 1982...I have no idea. I Googled to find out, but needed to stop when I saw an entry for the definition of "run a train." HOLY COW! I would have been better off without being enlighted.

I have never heard anyone in England using train as a verb, although it’s in common usage on this forum. It’s rather annoying!

Other pet hates of mine on this forum - British Air. NO! It’s either BA or British Airways.

Chunnel - not been in common parlance in Europe for the past 25+ years - it’s the Channel Tunnel.

All languages evolve and changes take place. However, correct usage of the language is the mark of a well educated individual. For many years during the mid 1900s, correct usage of the language by most people did improve due to great improvements in education. For the past thirty or thirty five years, however, it seems that incorrect usage has become very common due to declining educational standards. Many, many years ago a high school friend asked an English teacher why he had to learn to speak properly since people understood him anyway. She answered "You might have been raised in a bad part of town, but you can't succeed in life sounding like it".

Deplaned? Surely only on Fantasy Island?

Can you also detrain?

Are fanny packs or ball caps really appropriate words to use in polite company?

Thanks Kiwi ... never even though of ball caps other than something you would wear on your head with your favorite team logo or some such ... now I'll always think of the alt meaning ... well played.

Some of the sermonizing (sermoning? sermonising?) in the comments above resurrects another common topic here on the Forum regarding formality/informality and how propriety varies across cultures/countries/classes:

Maybe the rising prevalence of nonstandard English is due to changes in educational practices, but maybe it also has to do with changing cultural trends regarding familiarity and formality: as Rick is at pains to point out, you start and finish in France with a nicety like Bon jour or Merci because that's how it's done -- follow the expectation and you won't get what you might consider rude or cold service. But that's because the American expectation is to be informal or pal-sy wal-sy to show you have fellow-feeling -- which in France comes across as indelicate (too intimate).

In some contexts here in the USA (some parts [hedging my assertions, thanks emma]) using formal diction would be considered a distancing tactic, not the way to success. Sometimes using honorifics and family names instead of nicknames isn't a sign of movin' on up in the world from the wrong side of the tracks to the winners circle (ie Whitey) but a sign of putting on airs or being defensive (or even offensive) Think about your interactions with uniformed officers of the state and how different it would be taken if you called them by their first name or by their title compared to someone inhabiting a very different body from yours using the same words. You might be making a new friend, while he might get shot. The lower stakes version is buying a bottle of wine in a shop in Paris -- follow the right script and you'll enjoy the whole experience; follow the wrong script and you'll be overcharged and rushed out the door.

To share. I'm driven crazy by a certain publication that interviews people and then says, "She shared that..." instead of "She said" or "She stated."

I guess this is as good a place as any to mention the demise of "fewer"...everybody just seems to use "less" now, regardless of the noun.

"For many years during the mid 1900s, correct usage of the language by most people did improve due to great improvements in education."

I'd love to read the academic study that backs THAT claim! Wasn't that 'round the same time that Middle America was tuning in to Bill Haley, who was rockin' around the clock with lyrics like the ones from Shake Rattle and Roll?

Well you'll never do nothin' to save your doggone soul

I can look at you 'til you don't love me no more

Well, I can look at you an' tell you ain't no child no more

Then came Elvis and I'm all shook up. A decade later he was still proving himself a verbal failure in A Little Less Conversation.

A little less conversation, a little more action, please, All this
aggravation ain't satisfactioning me...

Elvis might have failed many of the lessons of life. But the success and popularity of his songs relied a good deal on his playfulness with English grammar - he surely killed all the prescriptive grammar lessons that Middle America's school marms were paid to impose on the nation's kids.

tdw: “grammer” is correctly spelled “grammar.”

Thought that might have been the case, you cleaver person, you.
I thought you might have said it ingest…

You can make a verb out of any noun. I will verb a word like bird when I'm out birding.

I'd love to read the academic study that backs THAT claim!

Russ,

My assertion is based soley on personal experience. Both sets of my grandparents had only a limited educational background. My parents both finished high school and one had a year of college. My two siblings and I (and our spouses) all have some college training, and four of us have advanced degrees.

In addition, I spent over twenty five years teaching on a college level. The students I encountered with the best language skills when I retired, were as bad as the ones with the worst skills when I started.

With regard to the music, I don't have a problem with artistic license. In fact, I enjoyed and danced to that music.

Sorry if I offended you or anyone else in the educational field. I only tried to relate what I personally experienced.

And who else corrects grammatical and spelling mistakes in books.....asking for a friend........

I hate to read people writing "the wife" as if she were some sort of possession.
I was at an exhibit about the Sistine Chapel yesterday, and in the introductory film the narrator made so many mistakes it was cringe worthy.

I am pondering your question as I watch the Olympics hoping that the US will medal in many events although they haven't medaled much. I will then loan my laptop to my husband because he can't houdini his password from his and then we can conversate about this dilemma. I generally will call out friends on Facebook for such transgressions and do not care if they unfriend me.

No offense taken at all, TC! Keeping with the "train" theme here, it's become clear to me that this RxR junction of a train thread has at two diverging railways. Like you, I spent a lot of years helping college kids attain improved language skills for academic and career success. And while it's perfectly fine to discuss grammatical vs. ungrammatical sentences or acceptable vs. unacceptable usage in more formal settings, it seems to me that Frank II, with his "train-as-a-verb" question, brought up a largely different topic: the evolution of the informal language that we witness and use every day in casual, live conversations and in online social media venues like this one.

"With regard to the music, I don't have a problem with artistic license. In fact, I enjoyed and danced to that music."

I bet. I did and still do. And any package like rock and roll that commandeers popular culture influences nearly everything else too. Not everyone wanted to break all the old rules, of course, but the kids of the 50's and 60's did collectively turn society on its head. And the old language rules were not immune. The Rick Steves forum has a lot of oldsters like me who once helped popularize phrases like "bummed out" and "a real bummer" - I just came across that usage somewhere on this very forum, in fact. It sounded revolutionary when I was 12 or 13, and I'm sure Mrs. Nelson, my 7th grade English teacher, probably didn't pick it up or approve of it in her classroom, but now it's pretty much universally acceptable in normal, everyday speech and on forums like this.

I'm sure neither you nor I nor any other paid writing instructor would encourage a college student to frame their opinion with words like "I was really bummed out about..." but to me that seems like some other conversation entirely.

"However, correct usage of the language is the mark of a well educated individual."

I'm mostly here with you, TC. I like to think I picked up some good tips on grammar and writing in college, and that I passed on some tips to my students. OTOH, college spoke my language. I grew up speaking mostly standard American English, so I had a big head start on those who grew up learning non-standard varieties like "Appalachian" or "Black English." "Correctness" came to me almost as easily as my blue eyes.

Also, people in those minority linguistic communities often have a skill that I do not - once they pick up standard English, they do not just "lose" the language of their home/community, but they routinely switch between standard English and their non-standard variety of English.

In the opposite vein, anyone who has attended professional-conference talks has certainly had to listen to the latest lingo that impresses and creates a superior in-crowd. Then you are left with the decision of either mastering this new lingo to show you are up-to-date in your field, or you express the idea in the old-fashion way, leaving others to wonder if you are up-to-date on the latest in the field or if you don't care about pretension..

So right, Bets. Apparently, one of the most essential functions - or maybe "abuses" is more the point - of language is to create "us/them" codes. You see this at all levels of society. (Hmm, should that be "we/they" codes??)

To put a cherry atop Bets and Russ 's proximal comments, one of the tributes to Todd Gitlin following his passing on 05 Feb a week ago was that he wrote and lectured in a way that neither oversimplified nor overcomplicated the issue at hand.

Egads, looks like a pandemic of noun > verb transitioning could be underway over on TA! Poor "hotel"...

"We have been camping/hostel/hoteling our way through Central America."
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g309247-d3167230-r320973531-Camping_Los_Cocos-Playa_Samara_Province_of_Guanacaste.html

"Very clean, safe area though we hoteled it this time, rather than AirB and B or HomeAway."
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g28970-i40-k11770980-Safe_areas_in_DC-Washington_DC_District_of_Columbia.html

"Having hoteled it for the previous week, it was so nice to have the room provided by these cabins."
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Hotel_Feature-g154927-d582957-zft1-Forest_Echoes_Cabins.html

(What's with that "it"?)

"We had been lucky enough to play at JCB Golf club....and just when you thought the day couldnt get any better we wined and dined......well.....beered and burgered here."

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g504148-d13820184-r805897864-The_Bulls_Head_Alton-Alton_Staffordshire_England.html

("Wine" is no stranger to abuse, but now beer and burger are getting "verbed?" So sad.)

"Sandwich" has been victimized forever...

"It's made by sandwiching crispy layers of puff pastry with a rich custard pastry cream filling and then garnishing the top with a glossy royal icing."

"Out" often figures into these crimes of grammar. How could anyone do this to "pizza"???

"We got a nice table outside on the water and ordered 2 glasses of wine - we were simply beered out for the day."
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g34344-d1845464-r763057573-Shipwreck_s_Bar_and_Grill-Key_Largo_Florida_Keys_Florida.html

"I can't comment on their pizzas as everything else was delicious and you do get pizza-ed out in Italy."
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g580214-d13337731-r686295375-Ristorante_Pizzeria_Il_Giardino-Ischia_Isola_d_Ischia_Province_of_Naples_Campan.html

“Eurostar “ has become a verb.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/int-l-flight-then-eurostar

Some of us find it fun to play with language and verbify nouns. :D

And now I shall valentine you all with heart emoji: ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Happy Valentine's Day ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Or, as my grandchildren say…

I❤️U2

Frank,

When was the last time anyone diagrammed a sentence?

I can usually understand what is being communicated...if not I move on, not really that big of a deal.

....verbify nouns.

There is an actual term for that! A google of google brought up this amusing piece on the subject, and the writer states that, ".... linguistic nerds call it denominalization". Who knew!?

https://daily.jstor.org/in-which-we-science-why-nouns-become-verbs-because-language/

I like "verbify" better. 🤣
With that, I'm off to thread my way through Tuesday's new threads.

Downton Abbey, season 5 episode 7, Lady Grantham, Cora, just said “I’ll train up to London tomorrow.”

Reading all these posts was a lot of fun! I had to laugh though, because I used the word "train" as a verb a few weeks ago here (picking it up from someone). At the time, I wondered at its usage but decided it would work and allowed me to avoid typing 3 excess words. 😉

It is an interesting situation, however. Last winter, I attended a Zoom meeting featuring Damion Searls, who recently translated Letters to a Young Poet: With the Letters to Rilke from the ''Young Poet'' from German to English. In his lecture, he discussed the difficulties of translating German to English, noting that in German, nouns are dynamic - much more so than English nouns. English tends to use verbs and adjectives to describe things. German verbs are “bland” and many have prefixes that turn them into dozens, if not hundreds, of different verbs. One phrase in English - “I was terribly afraid” - would be better translated in German to “An enormous fear rose up in me.” In German, the “fear” is doing everything.

But that made me think about verbs, because he's right - the English language uses verbs in ways other languages do not. So I suppose that if you're going to write, "I will take the train to...", why not make it simpler and just write, "I train to..."? Food for thought.

But don't get me started on the Oxford comma!

This topic has gotten more replies than I thought it would.

We don't say were are going to "plane" somewhere, we say we are going to fly. We don't say we're going to "car" somewhere, we say we are going to drive.

For taking the train, perhaps we should say we are going to "track" somewhere

I'd like to write more but I'm late for an appointment. I'm not going to walk, I'm going to "hoof" it.

To all, I recommend an essay by George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language.”