Friday, July 9, 2010

The is En-Lightning

The other day Tom was going to play golf and said something like "We'll play if it doesn't lightning." I thought that sounded so odd and I questioned if "lightning" was a verb. We talk about "the lightning" and "lightning bolts" but I never thought of it as a verb. "It is going to lightning" just doesn't sound right.

But it is. I looked it up. Lightning is a word in which the same form is used as a noun, an adjective and a verb. Then I thought, there must be a term for words like this. But in that search, I came up empty. One web site has a list of 150 words which are both nouns and verbs. I just keep thinking there must be a term for these words.

Anyone?

1 comment:

Diane said...

Hi Connie! Words that are both nouns and verbs are called gerunds. Swimming and riding, for example. I believe the clue is the ing ending--ha, another one!

Are you back in town? I've been enjoying your comments on my artwork. Yeah, finally opened an Etsy shop. Figuring out what to charge is really tough.