12.24.08
Ha! Bumhug!
On this glorious eve, I’m going to play the Ghost of Christmas Past to the Scrooges who would penuriously deny us the gift of gifting.
I’m talking about the the Scroogely denial of English’s gifted ability to bestow life to nouns, creating verbs in the process. Gift-noun begats gift-verb begats whining from the persnickitorial language Scrooges, who have real misgiftings about such conversion.
Do these people challenge the word gifted as applied, for instance, to prodigies? Should those endowed with special abilities instead be givended? Or something? Should the relay-baton present be regifted or regave? In each case, I believe I’ll stick with the former.
The American Heritage Book of English Usage notes:
Unfortunately, the use of gift as a verb in Modern English is tainted by its association with the language of advertising and publicity (as in Gift her with this copper warming plate).
Fair enough, particularly when commercialism has tainted the strings-attached noun gift so often that the phrase “free gift” is an almost required redundancy. But the real tragedy of the above example is the possibility of someone thinking a copper warming plate might be a romantic gift.
The language Scrooges are a bit more pointed than American Heritage. For example: “Using gift as a verb is a sign of stupidity, laziness, and verbal sloppiness.” And denying its use as a verb is a sign of not just persnickitorial intolerance but also of denying a basic writing principle: The right word is the right word. Certainly, using the lightning-rod gift when give is the right word is frown-upon-able. “Don’t gift in! I’ll gift you a call later!” But there are instances when gift, with its almost legal nuance, can be a more precise and powerful word than its suggested synonyms. Consider:
- Smith will gift the deed to the university. Formal, with implications of recorded transactions and tax benefits.
- Smith will give the deed to the university. “Here ya are. Don’t need it anymore.”
- Smith will bestow the deed to (upon?) the university. With puffed-up chest and “Pomp and Circumstance” playing in the background.
- Smith will bequeathe the deed to the university. Hinting of magnanimity, but without quite the formality of the first instance.
- Smith will donate the deed to the university. Comments similar to that of bequeathe.
- Smith will make a gift of the deed to the university. Only if Smith is trying to compensate for failing the writing course that instructed students to avoid passive, wordy and, yes, verbally sloppy phrasings.
And so this Ghost of Christmas Past turns back a page or two to quote not Dickens but Henry Fielding in Tom Jones, A Foundling (Book 1, Chapter 5): “As this is one of those deep observations which very few readers can be supposed capable of making themselves, I have thought proper to lend them my assistance; but this is a favour rarely to be expected in the course of my work. Indeed, I shall seldom or never so indulge him, unless in such instances as this, where nothing but the inspiration with which we writers are gifted, can possibly enable any one to make the discovery.”
Sure, there are plenty of ways to abuse gift. But sometimes, like the noun at Christmas, it’s best to accept it with grace and gratitude.
, 
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SoupAddict Karen said,
December 24, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I hereby gift thee and thy lovedeth ones mine own fondest wishes for a Merry, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
[Fine print: Fondest wishes may not be returned for cash but may be exchanged for fondest wishes of another holiday of equal or lesser value, such as Christmas for Easter, Flag Day for Arbor Day, Independence Day for Bastille Day, New Years for Rosh Hoshana, etc. Offer applies only to participating wish gifters.]
Bill Brohaugh said,
December 25, 2008 at 8:45 am
I feel appropriately begifted. And equal fondness and equal wishes in return!
David Fried said,
November 3, 2010 at 12:11 am
Allow this lawyer to protest. “Almost legal?” Whether you “gift,” “give,” “donate,” or “bequeath” a deed to the University, at the end of the day the University will have . . . a piece of paper suitable for framing. If you want the University to have the property, you have to “give” or “donate” it if it is personalty like a painting, or “grant” it if it is real property like land. “I hereby grant Blackacre to Harvard University in fee simple (i.e., absolutely).”
The words effect the transfer, and it is good against the world when recorded. At one time “sealing” and “delivery” of the deed were also required–as in “signed, sealed and delivered”–but not any more. Even “fee simple” could be left out since an intention to grant property absolutely is presumed. It takes the average lawyer more than one lifetime to realize that the law has changed, though, which is why you still see often see the words “under seal,” although there is no seal, and you don’t need any damn seal. And they’re always afraid that a legal action will be ineffective in the absence of five synonyms, so you still see stuff like “grant, demise, transfer, release and forever quitclaim,” which means absolutely nothing, but has a fine ring to it, and makes the clients feel they’re getting value for money.
The “delivery” of the deed formerly required was a substitute for the old ceremony of “livery of seisin”–handing over possession in the form of a clod of earth, before witnesses. But that’s been gone for centuries.
And “bequeath” refers to a transfer of personal (not real) property effected by will. It’s the opposite of a gift, which occurs only between the living.
So your several examples are not equally right, but equally wrong, or at least equally irritating. I’m not asking lay people to use legal technicalities correctly–good writers don’t use them at all unless they’re reasonably sure what they’re saying, because they are unnecessary. If you want to say Joe gave the painting to the University, say “Joe gave the painting to the University.” If Joe’s dead, say he “willed” the property to the University. Leave the deeds, and donates, and bequeaths out of it.
Cranky Man