this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Thank you. I'm so sick of people jumping on 'oh language changes over time' when others are just using words wrong.
I mean you're half right. If enough people start using it wrong then it becomes a legitimate thing. It's kind of like our currency system.
I'd say it isn't wrong, per se; english, especially american english has a long history of 'verbing' nouns...
... But at least in this case, it is less precise and more cumbersome than not using slang.
That and of course, if you've never seen or heard it used this way, it is confusing.
So... not wrong... but not useful, concise, or efficient.
You could use a verb that just directly connects the subject to the object, but when you take an adjective and 'verbify' it, now you have to construct a phrase to do that... and it still results in a more passive voicing.
Its only more succinct if the sentence has no specified object, no thing that the verb is acting on.
I'm vagueing.
You're vagueing.
They're vagueing.
...etc.
It's less archaic if you're familiar with the term "vague posting", meaning to post something specifically about someone but not to mention them by name (but usually enough information for those who know both parties to know who the post is about).
Seems like it's been shortened to just the first word.
I don't think archaic is the word you mean... as the use of vagueing as a verb is fairly new, not fairly old.
Archaic would be like... betwixt, hither, goodly, plain (meaning not very attractive), anon (meaning immediately), methinks...
... words that once were commonly used, but have much more widely used modern replacements.
Anyway, yes I'm familiar with the term vague posting, and I agree that it is a very likely etymological antecedent of vagueing.
Doesn't change that vagueing as a verb is more clumsy to use in a sentence which intends to specify an object.
Both vague posting and vagueing work well to describe the actions of only a subject, but yeah, they are more awkward to use when you want to specify an object of the vague posting or vagueing.
They can't be conjugated on their own, to do that requires helper words, auxilliary verbs.
On their own, they are always in the continuous tense.
... Though I guess you could say vagues, vagued, vagueing...
... but at that point I'd argue the connection to communicating in online posts is lost, and it would begin to apply to any kind of communication where a person is being vague, losing the specificity of 'it's not vague to those with insider/first-hand knowledge'.