The TypochondriacHow do you turn a noun into a verb?

Kinko’s turns office into officing in an advertising campaign. Makes sense, right?

“Stick it to ’em, Alden,” chortled communicohort Phil Douglis in a gloss he’d jotted alongside an article he’d snipped from the Arizona Republic. “Are you going to let Kinko’s get away with this?”

This turned out to be Kinko’s slogan “The New Way to Office,” and its seasonally adjusted knockoff, “The New Way to Holiday.”

Republic columnist Bill Goodykoontz shares Phil’s dislike of the practice of verbing nouns: “It sounds wrong.” But when he telephoned Kinko’s headquarters in Ventura, Calif., he said ad director Charlotte McGee told him “Office isn’t a noun. Officing is a way you get business done. It’s a verb.”