It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as

It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed howmany nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticingwhat we're doing.

    I was arranging to meet someone fordinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, but my friendsaid “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not atentative one!

    Many of these new verbs are linkedto new technology. An obvious example is the word fax. We all got used tosending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxingsomething and promising we'd fax it immediately. Then along came email and wewere soon all emailing each other madly. How did we live without it? I canhardly imagine life without my daily emails.

    Email reminds me, of course, of mycomputer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. Onmy computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I thinkI'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering theiraddresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC,but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so theverb comes from an adjective not a noun. 

Now my children bought me a mobile phone, known simplyas a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, thatis, I can leave a message for them on their phone. Or I can text them, write afew words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it bebefore I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heardthat verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ ll start using it myself! 　

1.“I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraphprobably means “____________”.

A. it was a firm arrangement

B. he prefers a pencil to a pen

C. the arrangement should be written as a diary

D. it was an uncertain arrangement

2.A website address can be easily found if it has been____________.

A. favorited                          B.messaged                         C.emailed                            D.texted

3. Which of the following has not been used as a verbyet?

A. message                           B.mobile                              C.email                                 D.fax

4. The best title for this passage is____________.

A. How to use verbs

B. Development of the English language

C. Origins of verbs

D. New Verbs from Nouns

试题答案

【答案】

1.D

2.A

3.B

4.D

【解析】

试题