Let's history verbing

You know that I am somewhat picky about writing, editing and publishing. It seems to me that it is required of a writer that he be clear. That is surely the minimum we can demand. If I don't know on about what someone is, then how can I either agree or disagree with what he says?

And one thing that adds to fug is verbing. The practice of using a noun as a verb.

There was a particularly infelicitous example of verging in Guy Prentiss Waters' commentary on Acts. The verb "to credential". As in "Luke reminds us that the apostles’ witness to Jesus was credentialed by Jesus’ own works of power." It's exampled three times in the book.

Come on. We don't need to neologism in these circumstances. Credential is not a verb and must not be conjugated. It is very easy to reformulate the sentence as something like "Jesus' own works of power were the credentials of the apostles' witness." Or use "authenticated".

Friends, let's history verbing.

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