"Cutoff" Is Not a Verb
Despite what many people --mostly in the computer field-- think,
"cutoff" is not a verb. It's simply not. Whether or not
"cutoff" is a word at all
may spark a debate in some circles, but assuming it is then it may act as
many parts of speech, but not as a verb.
I will repeat the important part for clarity:
"cutoff" is not a verb.
It's simply not.
This site is dedicated to educating people about the common misuses of words
like
"cutoff." It is meant for both non-native speakers who may not know any better, and for
native speakers who should know better but don't. It is in no way
a substitute for a real education. Poor grammar is an excellent way to
make any presentation sound stupid --or program look sloppy-- so if you
intend to use this language much then it behooves you to learn it properly.
For clarity, I need to point out that this has nothing to do with verbification,
or "verbing." It is completely natural for nouns to become verbs and verbs
to become nouns; the problem this site addresses is the manner in which
that happens for a particular category of word or phrase. This is not an
attempt to arrest the evolution of the language, but to correct mistakes.
Conjugation
It is possible to conjugate verbs. They can change tense and mood. They can
change number and person. You will see how even basic conjugation fails for
"cutoff."
Here are some examples with the verb "conjugate." If you doubt that
"conjugate" is a verb (or need to look up what it means), definitions from
dictionary.com
and Merriam-Webster
agree. Note that, as with many verbs, noun forms exist. Here we're using
the verb form.
| Singular | | Plural |
|---|
| Person | Pronoun | Verb | | Pronoun | Verb |
|---|
| 1st | I | conjugate | |
we | conjugate |
|---|
| 2nd | you | conjugate | |
you [all] | conjugate |
|---|
| 3rd | he/she/it | conjugates | |
they | conjugate |
|---|
Conjgate is a regular verb, so the present tense is simple. Consider the
past tense:
| Singular | | Plural |
|---|
| Person | Pronoun | Verb | | Pronoun | Verb |
|---|
| 1st | I | conjugated | |
we | conjugated |
|---|
| 2nd | you | conjugated | |
you [all] | conjugated |
|---|
| 3rd | he/she/it | conjugated | |
they | conjugated |
|---|
The past tense is easy to form with a weak verb like "conjugate." This is
normal behavior for a verb. English has more complicated verbs, like
irregular and strong verbs, but those are generally the oldest verbs in the
language. New verbs are regular and weak.
Verb:
"Cutoff" (?)
As a new verb,
"cutoff" should follow the regular, weak model that "conjugate"
exemplifies. Unfortunately, it does not:
| Singular | | Plural |
|---|
| Person | Pronoun | Verb | | Pronoun | Verb |
|---|
| 1st | I | cutoff | |
we | cutoff |
|---|
| 2nd | you | cutoff | |
you [all] | cutoff |
|---|
| 3rd | he/she/it | cutoffs | |
they | cutoff |
|---|
Notice the problem with the third person singular. However, let's choose
to ignore this problem for now. After all, we can't let one little conjugation
problem make thousands of programmers and technical writers look like fools.
Plowing right ahead, we'll look at the past tense:
| Singular | | Plural |
|---|
| Person | Pronoun | Verb | | Pronoun | Verb |
|---|
| 1st | I | cutoffed | |
we | cutoffed |
|---|
| 2nd | you | cutoffed | |
you [all] | cutoffed |
|---|
| 3rd | he/she/it | cutoffed | |
they | cutoffed |
|---|
Unfortunately, not a single one of those sounds right. It seems that
"cutoff" can't change tense or conjugate like a normal verb.
Many older verbs are strong verbs, meaning they change tense by modifying
an internal vowel or diphthong. As you will see, it doesn't behave like
a strong verb, either. Compare the above behavior to the strong verb "sing:"
| Present | | Past |
|---|
| I sing | | I sang |
|---|
| I run | | I ran |
|---|
| I meet | | I met |
|---|
See how the strong verb forms its past participle by changing an internal
vowel (instead of adding "ed" at the end, for example).
"Cutoff" does not do that, so it's not a strong verb.
Some grammarians will call this a "phrasal" or "two-part" verb, but this is
mostly because some grammarians are seeking tenure at their university posts
and must publish anything they can to get or keep that coveted teaching spot.
Similar motivation has created definitions for "compound verbs" and "stretched
verbs" --all different kinds of verbs, supposedly. Essentially, though, a
two-part verb must have two parts and cutoff only has one. The following
list of cutoff's component parts demonstrates this fact.
- Part 1: cutoff
- Part 2:
Having only one part, cutoff cannot be a two-part verb.
True Behavior
Someone may
make the case that it is irregular. By definition, irregular verbs do not
follow rules and have strange conjugations ("I am," "you are," "he is"),
but look at how it behaves:
| Singular | | Plural |
|---|
| Person | Pronoun | Verb | | Pronoun | Verb |
|---|
| 1st | I | cut off | |
we | cut off |
|---|
| 2nd | you | cut off | |
you [all] | cut off |
|---|
| 3rd | he/she/it | cuts off | |
they | cut off |
|---|
The past tense is also predictable:
| Singular | | Plural |
|---|
| Person | Pronoun | Verb | | Pronoun | Verb |
|---|
| 1st | I | cut off | |
we | cut off |
|---|
| 2nd | you | cut off | |
you [all] | cut off |
|---|
| 3rd | he/she/it | cut off | |
they | cut off |
|---|
It appears the verb is "cut," which behaves like a regular weak verb
(doubling the final consonant is normal: sag => sagged, dip => dipped) in both American and English. The verb form
is not a verb at all, but an idiom of a verb and a preposition, like
"break down" or "shake up." In fairness to some grammarians, this kind
of idiom sometimes has the name "phrasal verb" or "two-part verb." It's
true that most idioms of this kind use strong verbs, since they come
from Old Norse influence on the language over a thousand years ago. That
makes the "cut off" idiom unusual, but far more plausible than pretending
that we have an irregular verb
"cutoff" with something like
"cutdoff" as a
past participle. No other verb in the American language behaves that
way. Even in the arcane, deprecated predecessor of American (English),
no verb behaves that way.
What is it?
As I indicated earlier, I'm sure you can find purists who will argue
"cutoff" is not a word at all. For the sake of discussion, I will assume it is a
word because I do not care one way or another. Let's look at some
possibilities:
Adjective
Adjectives describe nouns. Let's put
"cutoff" with some other adjectives
("stupid" and "alabaster") to see how well they play with each other:
The cat is stupid. It is a stupid cat.
The cat is alabaster. It is an alabaster cat.
The book is cutoff. It is a cutoff book.
"Cutoff" doesn't work well as an adjective.
Adverb
Adverbs are to verbs what adjectives are to nouns. Adverbs describe verbs
(or, more accurately, the verb actions). Here are some sentences with
adverbs. See if you can tell which does not belong:
The car runs smoothly.
The car runs quietly.
The car runs cutoff cutoff.
"Cutoff" doesn't work well as an adverb.
Noun
Any fourth grader will tell you that a noun is a "person, place, or thing."
As such, it is something you can have and something you can modify. Behold
as I use my language powers to display ownership of the noun "book" and
then modify it:
| Owned | I have a book. |
|---|
| | |
| Modified | I have a secret book. |
|---|
I own the book, then make it a secret book. Truly, that is grand. Now
I will do the same for
"cutoff."
| Owned | I have a cutoff. |
|---|
| | |
| Modified | I have a secret cutoff. |
|---|
"Cutoff," it seems, works as a noun.
Clearly
"cutoff" is not a verb. It's simply not. If it is any part of speech
at all, it is a noun. While we did not explore every possible part of
speech, we saw with certainty that
"cutoff" is not a verb. It's simply not.
If you take only one thing away from this page, take that one fact:
"cutoff" is not a verb. Educate others. Correct manuals, software, and web pages as
you find them. Tell everyone you know that
"cutoff" is not a verb. You
will make a pedant (me) happy. You will earn the respect of grammar nazis.
Most importantly, you will know the truth.
Magnanimousness demands that I offer solutions, or correct forms of some of
the common abuses of
"cutoff" Here are some suggestions, assuming you prefer
to use
"cutoff" as a word rather than take a more conservative approach and insist the
proper form is
"cut off" or "cut-in."
| Common Misuse | Correction |
|---|
| Can you
cutoff? | Can you
cut off? |
| I tried to
cutoff . . . . | I tried to
cut off . . . . |
| Enter your name at the
cutoff prompt. | (This is acceptable) |
| Please cutoff again. | Please cut off again. |
What Next
What you do with this information is, of course, your choice. As I mentioned
above, however, the ideal choice is to use this knowledge for good and
correct errors. The more correct examples people see, the more people will
stop believing the lie that this is a verb.
You can also continue your education by learning about
other words that are not verbs.
For entertainment you can read
a sarcastic rebuttal to
the argument that cutoff really is a verb and the language simply has
evolved.
© 2006 -
2025
notaverb.com
Link, quote, reference, and share freely. Be a grown-up and give credit,
though.
Thanks to Mark Pettit for the corrections to the "checkout" page.
Thanks to Nathanial Jones for the
observation of phrasal verbs.
Thanks to someone whose email I deleted before I could record his name for his
suggestion to add a note on prepositions.
Thanks to John Goodman for the correction on "carryout" in the index.
Thanks to several people on
MetaFilter
for observing I need to clarify that the site is not about "verbing," just
about correct use of a word/phrase.
Thanks to Andrew Dunbar for slowdown and splashdown.