Thursday, December 07, 2006

Gifted

A friend of mine ranted about the blogworld use of "gifted". She brought it to my attention, and since then it's kind of annoyed me too. I just saw it in use *again*, so here I present to you the *correct* definition of gifted, courtesy answers.com:
gift·ed (gĭf'tĭd)
adj.
1. Endowed with great natural ability, intelligence, or talent: a gifted child; a gifted pianist.
2. Revealing special talent: a gifted rendition of the aria.
I believe the word you're looking for is "give," "gave," or "given," depending on tense, and all that grammar stuff.

Rant over.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"To gift" is a verb in Italian, though! So maybe if the subject ever comes up on my blog I'll write about it in Italian.

I'm afraid the blogosphere may be a grammatical lost cause. If only we could teach everyone the difference between "its" and "it's".

Thanks for the grammar PSA!

Anonymous said...

Grammar can change over time, yes?

Webster's Dictionary has it as a verb, equivalent to present "generously gifted us with a copy -- Saturday Review"

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=gifted

noricum said...

Yes, and I suspect that will happen here... but I do like to stand up for my friends. ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm going to be contrary and point out that answers.com also has the following:

gift (gĭft) pronunciation
n.

1. Something that is bestowed voluntarily and without compensation.
2. The act, right, or power of giving.
3. A talent, endowment, aptitude, or inclination.

tr.v., gift·ed, gift·ing, gifts.

1. To present something as a gift to.
2. To endow with.

[Middle English, from Old Norse.]

noricum said...

Interesting. *grin*

Anonymous said...

Main Entry: 2gift
Function: transitive verb
1 : to endow with some power, quality, or attribute
2 : PRESENT "generously gifted us with a copy -- Saturday Review"

per m-w.com (merriam-webster). My physical dictionary lists the same usage, and not as colloquial.

Anonymous said...

[note that "present" that the definition I listed was not the noun present but rather the verb as in "to present" -- which is evidenced by the usage example they give. It's perfectly proper usage as a transitive verb. I had to muck with the formatting to get blogger to accept the comment. :) ]

The other grammar lost causes bug me just as much though. ;)

noricum said...

I stand thoroughly corrected!

Anonymous said...

Corrected but stubborn, this use bothers me too. I refuse to use it. It falls into the "LOL" category for me somehow. Or perhaps "irregardless" is another example - now considered correct, but no more meaning than "regardless," so why the extra syllable and letters?