I'm sorning this morning

So having declared that you can make pretty much any noun work as a verb, I discovered a fairly extreme case in point in this morning's post.

If you declare that your car is off the road, you make a Statutory Off Road Notification, or SORN. The DVLA has very happily turned this - or at least the abbreviation - into a verb. So you can now walk into your friendly local post office and ask to sorn your car. The notice you receive from DVLA suggests that you 'Relicense [and thank you for spelling this correctly] or SORN online or by phone'. It's interesting that they keep the capitals.

Anyway, it has led me to suggest a small modification to my own rule. If you were to spell the abbreviation out in full, DVLA would be suggesting that you Statutory Off Road Notification online. And obviously that nominalisation there, already having been catapulted from the land of verb to the kingdom of noun, ain't going to be too happy to make a return trip. So perhaps nominalisations should be excused games, having once performed grammatical backflips.

More reasons to love The Onion

As if we needed more reason to love them.

1 - Gratuitous mentions of monsters. Monsters are pretty much my favourite thing. I'm particularly fond of using the word as a verb, which is more grist to my theory that you can use pretty much any noun in English as a verb and people will know what you mean – eg 'can I window your diary'? It's only a matter of time before that catches on.

2 - Naming of hurricanes. I was talking to someone just the other day about hurricane names and how we wouldn't be too alarmed if Hurricane Tim was threatening our shores - and dang it if they haven't written a whole essay on the subject.

3 - Anyone who sells t-shirts with the slogan 'I Appreciate The Muppets On A Much Deeper Level Than You' deserves plentiful oodles of love and devotion. I'll even forgive them their capitalisation.