It’s been a while since I ruined something perfectly innocuous for you guys.

For that reason, today we’re going to talk about action words and why they’re really not the big deal that some people make them out to be.

It’s a Verb! It’s an Action Word!

Remember the last time you heard someone—likely a motivational speaker, coach, or ecclesiastical leader—make a big deal about a word being a verb? And then they went on about how because it’s a verb, it’s an action word?

If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. If you have, the following examples may strike a little too close to home.

Work is an action word!

For instance, a middle manager of a company might hold a meeting where he tells his employees that “work” is a verb. It’s an action word! It’s a thing you go and DO! So go and grab life by the horns and just DO IT!

All of that is true. Work is a verb in the strictest grammatical sense.

Love is an action word!

Or maybe you’ll hear people talk about love, how it’s an action word. It’s something you have to go out and DO!

True enough. Love is something that really means nothing if it’s left unexpressed. And it is a verb, after all.

Faith is an ac—wait a minute…

In some cases, though, people will ascribe verbal status to words that are absolutely not verbs.

For instance, churchgoing types might relate to hearing someone make a big deal about faith being a verb. It’s an action word! It’s something you have to go and DO!

There’s a glaring problem here, of course. Faith is a noun, not a verb, and it sounds silly to assert otherwise, let alone get excited about it. Sure, exercising faith should be an active thing (perhaps depending on the religious persuasion you subscribe to, I suppose), but the word itself is a noun. It’s a thing. That you have. Or exercise. Or whatever.

I don’t mean to undermine the point, of course. There are just ways to express that point without being stupid about it.

You’re Getting Way Too Excited

Action is inspiring. Being able to take your fate into your own hands and do as you will—that’s a powerful concept.

However, the problem is it’s no great phenomenon that some word happens to be a verb. A verb describes the role a word plays in linguistic expression. Nothing more. Nothing less. So when someone makes a big point of a word being a verb, I can only sit and think, “So what?”

Sure. Work is a verb. Love is a verb. So too are exercise, build, create, inspire, and so on. All wonderful things, and all fairly active at that.

Do you know what else are verbs?

Sit.

Sleep.

Stink.

Fart.

Rot.

Atrophy.

They’re action words!

Don’t you feel INsPiReD?

Verbs Aren’t (Necessarily) Action Words

Of course, this all falls apart when we realize that verbs aren’t, strictly speaking, action words.

Yes, that statement flies in the face of what countless elementary school teachers have taught the masses. However, we’re not in elementary school anymore. We’re ready to take on more abstract concepts than we could at age eight.

It’s true that some verbs involve action. The problem is many others do not.

Inactive verbs

Sitting in an armchair and atrophying as you slurp down a can of cheese whiz is a concept fraught with verbs (sit, atrophy, slurp), but it’s not particularly active, is it? It’s quite passive, and frankly rather miserable on top of that.

So if these verbs aren’t “action words,” how do we define a verb?

Verbs are what’s happenin’

It may be defined as “a thing that happens.” In our above example, “sitting,” “slurping,” and “atrophying” are what’s happening.

That idea kind of collapses when you realize that “be” is a verb too, as in:

“Where you be?”

Or when more properly declined:

“Where you is?”

It’s not really active. And it’s not really “happening,” as we often regard it. “Being” is not an event that is, was, or will be going on (at least we don’t usually think of it as such). It just kind of IS.

Verbs express a grammatical situation

I had a professor who defined a verb as a “situation.” I think that probably fits best. Some situations are active. Some are passive. Some just are.

If someone jumps, they are doing an active thing. In that case, the verb “jump” is an action, and it’s the current situation being expressed in the sentence.

If someone is jumped, that’s a grammatically passive situation. Might not feel very passive when it happens, though. Even so, it’s the situation being expressed.

If someone has been jumped and is now lying dead in the gutter, that’s not really active, nor is it a thing that’s happening. They’re just kind of there. Being dead. In the gutter.

It’s a situation. A sad one, of course, unless you’re the person who did the jumping. Then you’re either content or arrested.

It’s Just Grammar, You Guys

That’s all beside the point, though. Really, whether something is a verb or not is just a point of grammar, and I think it’s a bit silly that people celebrate the verbal role a word plays in a given phrase.

So remember that the next time you’re tempted to make a big deal about how some such word is an action word. If you proceed with that course of action, you’ll most likely make a linguist roll their eyes.

And you can’t really blame them.

After all, “rolling” is an action word.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree? Do you think I should keep this pedantic BS to myself? Let me know in the comments! Also, share this with all your wonderful friends. All proceeds from this article go toward treating frustrated linguists for pulled eye muscles. Really.