Word Court

D avid P aisley , of Lakewood, Ohio, writes, "This drives me crazy: service used as a verb by supposedly intelligent people in the social-services profession. For instance, 'We service fifty clients a day' or 'Come to our seminar on servicing the mentally disturbed client.' My wife, who is a social worker, and I both feel that the only common usages of service as a verb apply to debt and prostitution. What's wrong with good old serve ?"

My heart is with you, but let's give the devil his due: Is it fair to refuse the social services verbal liberties that we take with medical personnel? Physicians doctor patients, after all, and nurses nurse them, and psychiatrists shrink them. What's more, dictionaries don't support the idea that the verb service relates chiefly to debt and prostitution. The Oxford English Dictionary gives five meanings for it, including "to be of service ...