LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  In theory, English nouns are also verbs: a pen, to pen; a paper, to paper; a paint, to paint; a finger, to finger; a hand; to hand. It also employs prepositions to make up new verbs: To come, to come in, to come out, to come up, to come down. This is very ingenious of English because it can be applied to any verb: to dance in, entrar bailando ; to dance out, salir bailando ; to run up, subir corriendo ; to run down, bajar corriendo . Due to the influence of English, Spaniards say "entrar dentro", "subir arriba" or "salir fuera" and other such nonsense. And thanks to the above prepositions we can explain how we do an action: to walk in, run in, step in, dance in, rush in, tiptoe in... and many more, which might be translated as: entrar caminando, entrar corriendo, entrar dando un paso, entrar bailando, entrar a toda prisa, entrar de puntillas.  

Es un eufemismo muy descriptivo por steal y apareció el el siglo 16, y todavía se emplea, por ejemplo en Gentlemen’s Quarterly de enero del 2000: “Jeff Bezos did not invent the book, nor Michael Dell the personal computer; they just figured out new ways to market them. Bill Gates copied the idea for Windows from Steve Jobs at Apple, who lifted it from Xerox…” Shoplifting es el choriceo, el descuideo, en tiendas. To lift es levantar: Help me lift the sofa , ayúdame a levantar el sofá. A weight lifter es un levantador de pesos. The fog lifted , se levantó la niebla. En Inglaterra a lift es un ascensor. En USA es un elevator. Y to give someone a lift, o a ride , es llevar a alguien en coche: May I give you a lift home? ¿te puedo llevar (en coche)?  Not to lift a finger es lo que llamamos en castellano no mover un dedo, no ayudar: He didn’t lift a finger to help me, no movió un dedo para ayudarme. PD. Lorraine Ladish me informa que los jóvenes ahora en...

I have written in GRAMÁTICA INGLESA PARA TORPES (Anaya, 2013) that most English nouns are also verbs : a paper, to paper ; a hand, to hand ; a lift, to lift ; a book, to book and so on. But… NOT always, and we must be extremely careful.  Now that people are on vacation, many e-mails I send bounce back, with messages like this one: “I will be out of the office from Monday 27 to August 3 with little access to email or phone. I will be happy to response upon my return.” Response is a noun , a response , but not a verb , which is to respond . The writer was not careful enough, but we must be and we will NEVER click SEND before reading and rereading what we have written. And checking grammars or dictionaries when we are in doubt. That will show we are professionals.An serious language students. VERBS , NOUNS To respond, response To believe, belief To hate, hatred To see, sight To please, pleasure To live, life To think, thought To advise, advice ...