ABSTRACT
7.11. The peculiar freedom with which substantives are made from verbs in English without change of form, is another consequence of the coincidence in form dealt with above 6.12. Accordingly we see an ever increasing number of these formations from about 1500. I shall give some examples in alphabetical order, adding the date of the earliest quotation for the vb and the noun in the NED.
Of course, we are not here talking of the usage common to many languages by which a verbal form, or any other word, is taken as a “quotation-substantive”: Sh Meas II. 2.32 I am at warre twixt will, and will not; cf vol II. 8.2.
