The kids in my neighborhood use verse as a verb, as in, “My team versed Bobby’s team last week.” This drives my friend and neighbor — a middle school English teacher — crazy. She corrects the kids and tells them that they can’t verse anyone in basketball, but they go right on asking each other if they want to verse so-and-so, who they versed yesterday, what team they’re versing tomorrow.

I had never heard verse used instead of versus, but I discovered that this usage is widespread. I heard my nephew — who lives in another state — use it this way. I asked my freshman writing students, and most of them said verse was used to mean “play against” when they were kids, too. Verse has been used this way for at least ten years. One student said it was used in his home state of California. From coast to coast for more than a decade, kids have been versing each other in sports and video games. The use of verse this way can be seen in the examples from 1995 posted with the reader comments at Literal-Minded.

I don’t know if verse will have staying power as a verb. My students told me that they no longer use the word that way, now that they are (more or less) adults, though a couple knew of friends their age and older who still use verse. Will using verse as a verb become so widespread that one day it is accepted? As of today, dictionary.com simply notes that verses and versus can be confused.

My neighbor expected me to share her dismay that kids are using verse this way. After all, I’m an English professor. Maybe I was in a contrarian mood (I know, this shocks you), but I didn’t join her in condemning verse as a verb. Words sometimes acquire new meanings, sometimes for strange reasons. I am a stickler for correct apostrophe use and encourage students to use words correctly, but I don’t insist that English stagnate. I’m open to arguments against this use of verse. I understand that it is based on a misunderstanding, probably because versus sounds the same as verses, or because kids just see vs. on video games (without hearing it) and think it stands for verse.

I wouldn’t accept people writing, for example, could of instead of could’ve, even if such use became widespread, so why not object to the error of verse as a verb? I don’t know. Maybe I see these as different kinds of errors.  Could of is nonsensical to me, while verse, though also based on an error, is clear. It just doesn’t hurt my ears the way certain other errors do. Probably I’m not being consistent, but it isn’t as if I am championing the use of verse as a verb. Maybe it’s just that I’m too tired from spotting all of the misused apostrophes in the world to take up another lost cause.

My son, anyway, has stopped using verse as a verb, but I still hear the other kids say it.

My neighbor is beside herself.