Talk:Backbiting

Unwarranted back-formation
"To backbite" is not a verb (at least in English usage), even tho it has the form of the progressive mode (grammar), and a less naive or more thoughtful editor would not have fallen into that cognitive pitfall. Yes, it could have been, and might in the future become, a verb, via backformation, but i trust my 72 years of exposure to the language that tell me it's not yet one. And to the point, defining it as if the putative infinitive were a reality rather than a (trivial) howler amounts to an effort to invent more logic than actually exists in the rough-and-tumble (note this other agrammatical etymology, which does not stem from the nominative freak usages "ball lands in the rough" or "a diamond in the rough" -- nor yet at all from "ruffing the Last Trump") of language language evolution. --Jerzy•t 08:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "Backbite" is recognised as a verb by the OED which gives examples dating back many centuries; for example: "To backbite an enemy is sin; how much more to back-bite one's own yoke-fellow."

- John Wesley


 * Andrew D. (talk) 13:32, 15 October 2018 (UTC)