From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!leichter
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Re: Re: and still more surprising words - (nf)
Article-I.D.: yale-com.927
Posted: Sat Feb 19 09:16:37 1983
Received: Sun Feb 20 06:25:03 1983
References: uiucdcs.1495

One of my complaints - while we are on this topic - is the (over)use of
"reference" as a verb.  "The article referenced on page 5" could just as
well be "the article refered to on page 5".  "Refer" has been there as the
verb for a long time; "reference" is a "nouned" form.  Why "verb" it?
(Now some etymologist will discover that "refer" is actually a "verbed" form
of the original "reference", in which case I will hide my head in shame.)

I say "overuse" because there is a subtle difference between "refer to" and
"reference" - "refer to" is more general - I can "refer to" a book without
giving you enough information to find it - but when I "reference" a book,
there seems (to me) to be an implication that a full bibliographic reference
is in there.  In most cases that I've seen "reference" used as a verb, though,
this writer is not making use of this distinction.
							-- Jerry
						decvax!yale-comix!leichter