Re: noun forms of verbs

From: "nicole dobrowolski"

> question is: would it be valid to say that "food" is a noun form of
> the verb "to eat"?
I don't see why not. As others have pointed out, there is the word "eats",
referring to food. I personally don't see it as archaic, I didn't realize it
was an Americanism, and while my travel experiences within the 48 have been
almost exclusively limited to the great state of New England, I consider it
current usage, albeit rather "down home" (I mostly use it for humorous
effect, usually as "good eats" [which almost never are]).

Still, if *I* were you, I'd wanna to come up with some synonyms, too  mainly
because I think things will start doubling up, and I, personally, hate
expressions like "dance a dance", "dream a dream", "walk a walk", etc.
(there's a word for these).

Case in point, in Géarthnuns, the word for "play" is "íönsel"; the word for
"game" is "íönsels". Now if you think I'm going to allow an expression like
"sí íönselsít íönsel" for "play a game" in *my* lang, you've got another
thing coming. To get around it, you say "sí íönselsíts dravnath" (lit: "make
a game"), and allow "íönsel" with specific game names. There are other
instances where this sort of thing crops up (which escape me now), and
similar circumlocutions have been devised (I don't want "dravnath"
["do/make"] to be the catch-all default, but it *is* handy).

So, if expressions like "eat eats" don't make you squeamish, then go for it.

Kou

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