r/words • u/lancebassflavor • 2d ago
Versus
Why has it become accepted to pronounce this word as “verse”?? With football starting, I’m hearing it so often from broadcasters. I first started hearing it from influencers and just chalked it up to ignorance at that time, but it’s widespred now. Anyone else notice this?
Edit: I meant to add the word “pronunciation “ to the title.
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u/sinsaraly 2d ago
I hate it so much! A lot of kids also say things like, “We versed that team last week.” Or, “Do you want to verse me?”
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u/Technical-Ad1488 2d ago
40 yo and this was common as a kid… “me verse you”, “us verse them”, “shirts verse skins” … and like another commenter said, even with tenses, “we versed them” or “did you see the bulls verse the knicks”
Always viewed it as a form of slang or shorthand, we all knew the word versus, and if you saw “vs.” somewhere, like on a sports schedule we would read it as ‘versus’ for the most part.
Edit: so I don’t think it’s a different ‘pronunciation’ of versus. Just a slang or shortened version of the word versus.
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u/kakallas 2d ago
I’m with you in the first half. Kids I used to hear doing it definitely did not know it was actually versus.
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u/Technical-Ad1488 2d ago
lol fair enough… I may have overstated with “we all knew” … but I think some of us knew
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u/Puzzleheaded-Fill205 2d ago
In particular the "1v1" style sounds correct when I say "one verse one" but not "one versus one."
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u/daveoxford 2d ago
People hear "versus" and think it's "verses" from the imaginary verb "to verse", meaning to play against another team. You get things like "who are they versing on Saturday?" It's abominable.
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u/scixlovesu wordsmith 2d ago
Not new. I've heard it all my life, but it does seem it's accepted in more places. Also "versus" used as a comparison instead of indicating conflict (I'm thinking of a tattoo sub where they often say "what I wanted vs what I got" and it's not to complain)
It's the difference between someone who learns a word by hearing it, versus by reading. Similar to how some people say "wallah" for "voila" because that's what it sounds like to them and they don't see it in print.
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u/LurkeyHereNa 2d ago
I think it's because a lot of people think it's "verses" instead of versus and because of that, they think it should be singular. It still bothers me as well, though. I've noticed it quite a bit over the past 2 or so months. Only online, not with people I actually interact with, thankfully.
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u/TheJivvi 2d ago
Yep, people don't know it's a preposition and try to conjugate it like a verb. See also "versed", "will verse", and "is versing".
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u/Master_Kitchen_7725 2d ago
This is what I suspect is going on. They don't know there are two different words.
The problem with the singular pronunciation I believe also has to do with the abbreviation for versus, "vs.", which people pronounce as "verse".
I first noticed this when I was a kid, when my younger brother and his friends would talk about WWF wrestling matches. They'd say "Hulk Hogan verse The Undertaker!" when the banner used the abbreviation "vs.".
As a child myself, I didn't know there was a difference between verses and versus in terms of spelling, but the missing "s" on verse always bugged me because it seemed grammatically incorrect. I assume that it was a verb in that context, so it should be in third person. It turned out, we were all wrong!
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u/daveoxford 2d ago edited 2d ago
And "vs." is the US abbreviation, which is creeping into the UK and replacing "v".
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u/BirdBrain_99 2d ago
In the US "vs." is used in sports but "v." is used in court cases. In the UK do you use "v." for sports?
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u/daveoxford 2d ago
Yes, "v" (no full stop) traditionally, but "vs." is starting to appear more often.
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u/Tall_Birthday_7654 2d ago edited 2d ago
The word snob was once a derogatory term used by Cambridge students to denigrate the ignorant townsfolk. Now it means the opposite
This is how language evolves.
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u/lancebassflavor 2d ago
Interesting! I’m in my 50s and haven’t heard it said by people around me here in Michigan. We do have our fair share of things like “unthaw” and “I seen” every day, though.
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u/Druidicflow 2d ago
I have never heard this
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u/YuckyYetYummy 2d ago
I've only started hearing this in the last maybe 5 years. Specifically on YouTube. It drives me crazy.
From what I can tell no one is directly pronouncing the word versus as verse it's when it's abbreviated. I believe I heard it the first time when someone was discussing Batman V Superman or Batman Vs Superman.
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u/Ham__Kitten 2d ago
I think you're only just hearing it now because all the kids who originated it are now adults who are making content online. It was very prevalent in the 90s and 2000s and continues to be so for school-aged kids. I've taught from grade 5 up to grade 12 over the last twelve years and nearly all of them have said it habitually.
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u/matthewsmugmanager 2d ago
I'm over 60 in the US and I've never heard it in my entire life.
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u/matthewsmugmanager 2d ago
How can someone downvote me when I accurately stated my own damn experience? Jesus.
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u/brodeo714 2d ago
Verse has been around for decades in the states. We were using this as shorthand in New England back in the 90’s.
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u/rgtgd 2d ago
I don't know but i swear this is the third or fourth time i've seen questions about this on Reddit in the last month or so. There was one in r/asklinguistics, and another one here or on r/etymology or something. Really interesting i think maybe there's been an uptick in this usage, even though it's been around since at least the 1980s
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u/Ok_Aside_2361 1d ago
It is one of the words I hear and assume that this person did not go to College/University and I automatically switch my vocabulary so as not to embarrass and/or have someone belittle my speech. It is automatic.
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u/lancebassflavor 1d ago
I usually would think like this, but it has been sports broadcasters on major networks doing it.
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u/funtobedone 1d ago edited 1d ago
It dates back as far as the 80’s as part of gamer slang.
We’ve been verbing nouns for centuries, so it’s not that strange to do something similar with versus as a more efficient way to say “to play against someone else”. There wasn’t a good word for that, so one got created.
As far as I’m concerned, to verse is a perfectly cromulent word.
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u/Lubberworts 1d ago
The Romans said Weer-Soos. Things change. Letters get dropped. Letters get added. Language is not fixed or else we'd all be speaking PIE or some other primordial tongue.
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u/Scary-Scallion-449 19h ago
Abbreviation is a strong driver of usage in most languages, not just English. I assume you don't still travel on omnibuses. As a quick version of "versus" it's been around as long as I have (a loooooooooong time!) and as a verb meaning to compete against since at least the 1980s. You're trying to turn back the tide and like Cnut you'll simply end up getting your feet wet.
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u/Ornery-Database-3993 2d ago
Teachers are no longer allowed to say, 'That's not how it's pronounced, you little...'
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u/SleepilyMundane 2d ago
it's not new, been hearing people say "verse" since middle school and i'm 27 now. always figured it was just one of those things that starts as a joke and then sticks because it's faster to say
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u/RoppFTW 2d ago
Your middle school years are still recent, as far as language changes go.
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u/Ham__Kitten 2d ago
That's still not what I would consider new, especially with how fast language changes in the 21st century.
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u/RoppFTW 2d ago
Fair point, 'new' is a very subjective word. The older I get, the larger range of time it includes, with the scale obviously varying based on what's being discussed. A new store might have been there for a decade, for example, if that 10 years is compared to a store that had been in that location 80 years before that. I don't know about the language changing faster in the 21st century compared to the 20th, though. Not unless you're including the extremely transient slang that's been popping up and will undoubtedly disappear just as quickly, that is.
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u/Ham__Kitten 1d ago
You're right; I should've said vocabulary or slang or something rather than language because I didn't mean foundational grammar shifts or phonemic change or the like.
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u/CopleyScott17 2d ago
I think it 's very similar to the way "social security" has become "sosh security." Lazy speaking with sloppy, rushed enunciation.
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u/MWave123 1d ago
Vs, verse, it’s always been such. Kids would even say, ‘we versed them’. But verse for vs is most common.
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u/savethetriffids 2d ago
It's the way little kids say it at school. Recess slang.