Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

He just thought to poppet in!

... because it offered a window of opportunity.

[LMcD]

... because it offered a window of opportunity.

I shall clearly have to take care to frame my comments more carefully.

[kernelbogey]

An open and shut case.

[Serial_Apologist]

An open and shut case.

I was going to say, his real name must be Justin Casement.

[kernelbogey]

I was going to say, his real name must be Justin Casement.

Je ne le sache pas....

[vinteuil]

.

... please, nurse - curtains!

.

[kernelbogey]

Unlock - appears to be being used as a noun now (i.e. the reverse of lockdown).

And now in The Observer 'wait staff' - i.e. waiters. Is this making verbs into nouns a thing now? Just a trend to use shorter words?

[gurnemanz]

And now in The Observer 'wait staff' - i.e. waiters. Is this making verbs into nouns a thing now? Just a trend to use shorter words?

I agree that 'wait staff' is not a welcome or necessary new phrase but "making verbs into nouns" is surely not the reason for its irksomeness. This is a standard, age-old and perfectly acceptable way of broadening usage. Countless examples like:

walk (verb) - doing it
walk (noun) - the doing of it

"Wait" is already often used as a noun in a general context as in usage like "a long wait" .

[french frank]

I agree that 'wait staff' is not a welcome or necessary new phrase but "making verbs into nouns" is surely not the reason for its irksomeness.

I agree. It is one of the flexibilities of English that no matter what part of speech a word begins as, in English it can be converted into something else: he upped his bid, downed him with one blow, the ins and outs, no ifs or buts, uncle me no uncle, the bravos rang round the stadium.

[Serial_Apologist]

I agree that 'wait staff' is not a welcome or necessary new phrase but "making verbs into nouns" is surely not the reason for its irksomeness. This is a standard, age-old and perfectly acceptable way of broadening usage. Countless examples like:

walk (verb) - doing it
walk (noun) - the doing of it

"Wait" is already often used as a noun in a general context as in usage like "a long wait" .

"Waitering" is (or was) in common usage in catering. Oh, and "waitressing"! !

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Unlock - appears to be being used as a noun now (i.e. the reverse of lockdown).

It would be better to use a gerund: ‘unlocking’.

[kernelbogey]

I agree that 'wait staff' is not a welcome or necessary new phrase but "making verbs into nouns" is surely not the reason for its irksomeness. This is a standard, age-old and perfectly acceptable way of broadening usage.

You - and others - are of course right; it was just that 'unlock' and 'wait' used in those ways seemed particularly unlovely.

It would be better to use a gerund: ‘unlocking’.

[french frank]

It would be better to use a gerund: ‘unlocking’.

"Waitstaff" is, apparently - can you believe? - (North) American. Waiting staff is British

[Bryn]

"Waitstaff" is, apparently - can you believe? - (North) American. Waiting staff is British

But what about "waitering staff"?

[french frank]

But what about "waitering staff"?

96,400 hits, compared with 'waiting staff' with over 4 million. There seems something vaguely tautologous about 'waitering staff'. Waiters wait, rather than waiter.