Versing

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Kelly Rose from Butte, Montana.

Hey, Kelly. Welcome.

Hi, Kelly. What’s up?

I’m a teacher, and I’ve taught for 21 years or more.

And just last year, I noticed my students were using a term that I know isn’t right, and the term is versing.

Versing. And they’re not talking about poetry, I take it.

I’m not talking poetry, no.

Kelly, what grade do you teach?

I teach fifth grade.

Okay. So what do the kids mean when they talk about versing?

Well, it has to do with sporting events.

And, for instance, they might say, we were versing the Huskies tonight in our girls’ volleyball game.

Or our football team versed Vikings last night.

Okay. Are we going to verse them next week?

Yes. Yes.

And so you’re just hearing this how recently?

Just in the last year.

Maybe I’d heard it before, but I really noticed it in the last year.

And I think I noticed some adults saying it too.

I’m not surprised.

Actually, there should be quite a few adults using it.

The reason I know this is because we have written records of people using this going back 30 years.

And so those kids who were using it in the 80s are now grown up and using it, right?

So the kids are hearing it from their parents?

They could be hearing it from their parents, yeah.

And it’s explainable. It’s a really interesting word change, and it fits a pattern of word change in English that we know well.

So you probably already guessed that it’s a form of the word versus, V-E-R-S-U-S, right?

Right. That’s where I figured they were getting it from.

Right. So the tigers versus the jayhawks.

And versus, if you’re hearing it and not seeing it, sounds like a conjugated verb.

So you assume, because of your innate, instinctive understanding of the morphology of English,

That there’s a verb to verse out there, which means to play against, right?

Right, right.

And so then you start using that way.

You say, I versed him and beat him in the game we were playing.

People use it in online games all the time.

All the time.

Most of the reports that we get about this use come from people who are playing video games

Or have heard it from their children who are playing video games.

And so once you’ve got this term that kind of is floating out there, it kind of is kids speaking to kids or it was kids speaking to kids.

And it becomes the slang of childhood.

It becomes a thing where there’s not even really necessarily an adult around to correct them or to nudge them gently in the right direction and say, oh, well, actually what you mean is and just kind of explain the Latin and that sort of thing.

And so here we are 30 plus years later.

This term is fairly widespread throughout the English speaking world.

We have plenty of reports of this in Australia and New Zealand and the United Kingdom and India

And every place that young people have played against each other in sporting events or video games.

So is it wrong?

That’s always the question.

Let me ask you another question.

Okay.

What’s the singular of the word biceps?

Oh, I don’t know.

Well, the reason I ask is this is that pattern in English.

We have these words like versus and biceps and kudos and all of these other words, biscotti and panini, that are foreign.

They’re not exactly English, and we instinctively understand this, but we try to cram them into this misshapen space.

We make this foreign word that’s triangular try to fit in this octagonal English space, so to speak, right?

And so we kind of chip off some of the edges, and it doesn’t really fit, and it kind of does fit.

Biceps is plural and singular, traditionally.

Although we have in English decided that bicep sounds like a plural,

So we’re going to say I have a really buff bicep on my left arm.

Yeah.

From all the weightlifting, right?

Yeah, two-headed muscle.

Yeah, there we go.

And kudos, most people say kudos.

We think that that must be a plural because it ends in an S.

But it’s not.

It’s a singular.

And so we say, I got a really nice kudo from her in a note yesterday.

Yeah, yeah.

And those of us who read Greek think, it’s kudos.

So the question about whether or not you think versus is wrong probably depends on where in history you are.

Because when we see these changes happen in front of our eyes, they seem repugnant and repulsive.

Or at least a little dismaying.

Really? I’m not bothered by it.

Or dismaying, maybe.

Yeah, I trip over it a little bit, but I think it’s absolutely coming in.

It’s done. The change is on the way.

And once it’s done, Kelly, we’ll all think it’s ordinary.

It’s just while these transformations are underway that we find them the most appalling.

Should I not?

So if my students say it, it’s okay.

No.

What I would say is like, oh, I really love that slang word you have.

Let me show you what the Latin is like and explain to you what happened here.

I mean, it’s a learning opportunity rather than a correction opportunity.

Yeah.

So they might use it on the playground, but not in a paper, in other words.

Let us know what happens, okay?

I will.

Thanks.

Thanks, Kelly.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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