On gifting things

 I'm coming round to it. I used to hate the new verb, to gift something to someone, or to gift someone something. After all, we used to have a perfectly good verb, to give. But it is falling into disuse.

"The lieutenant gave the Queen a bouquet of roses" has become "the lieutenant gifted the Queen a bouquet of roses".

"The Queen was given a bouquet of roses" has become "the Queen was gifted a bouquet of roses".

Why not? Who says you can't turn nouns into verbs? And given the general irregularity of the English language, why not replace one old verb with a new one derived from its related noun ?

Anyway it is better that blessing people with things, which for someone from an Anglican background is fraught with misunderstandings, as when a friend once told me someone had blessed him with a puppy. 

I was genuinely baffled. Water, OK. Hand signals. OK. Touches on the top of the head. OK. But a puppy ?

We could even make whole new useful verbs to replace phrasal verbs. 

For example, to car, meaning to convey someone in a car.

With this new and simple verb we would no longer have to say "Richard gave me a lift to the airport." 

We could say "Richard carred me to the airport". 

It has lots to commend it. For example, consider this exchange:

"How did you come to the airport? I bussed it."

"I almost bussed it, but in the end Xavier carred me."

It works, doesn't it! It's logical, simple and economical.

Let's get verbing! Let's see how much we can new today!