In recent years, usage purists have been wringing their hands helplessly as lowly, immobile caterpillar nouns have transformed themselves into butterfly verbs.

These traditionalists get butterflies in their stomachs when they see down-to-earth nouns, such as "office," "example," "guest," "gift," "vet," "author" and "heart," suddenly take flight across the linguistic meadow. You might even say these purists can't stomach this.

Nevertheless, like many of our stomachs, this phenomenon is spreading. I'll example you a sentence: "The new way to office is to guest a business party, gift a colleague, vet a proposal Mary authored and tell her you heart it."

Vigilant readers, wielding butterfly nets, have recently "messaged" me with their catches: I will companion her. We anniversary these things. I'm going to science my way out of this. Let's scaffold this lesson plan. We need to trial this new product. Few Democrats are willing to primary Biden.

In 1979 Stanford University linguists Eve and Herbert Clark reported that nouns denoting palpable, concrete objects are more likely than abstract nouns to become verbs. The humble noun "plate," for instance, has inspired verbs with two different meanings, e.g., They plated four runs in the eighth inning; Let's plate these entrees before they get cold.

But this process can also work in reverse. Butterfly verbs sometimes retreat to their cocoons and then crawl out as caterpillar nouns, e.g., This used car is a find! Let's get a rise out of him. This book is a good read. She's our new hire.

Readers have told me they'd especially like to squash these caterpillars: She's a good first meet. I'll make the ask. It's an epic fail. Here's the big reveal. We can do the install in one day. I have a consult with my attorney. There's a disconnect between her policies and her practices. Our phone has call interrupt.

And during the past few months my teaching colleagues have been telling me about a new type of verb-turned-noun appearing in their students' papers: "lazy verbs." These are verbs formed when writers are too lazy to change a verb to its noun form by adding an "-ing" or other suffix.

Believe me, some of these crawlers are creepy: This was due to the uprise of the people. It represented a foreshadow of the future. There were many opposes of the plan. He made a strive for success. And — I'm not making this up — During the 1950s, America achieved prosper.

Let's just hope these lazy verbs don't prosper.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to WordGuy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, California, 90254.

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