9/24/2010 "Setup" is not a verb

"Se tup" I s Not a Ve rb

Despite w hat many people --mostly in the computer field-- think, "setup" is not a verb. It's simply not. Whether or not "setup" is a w ord 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 w ill repeat the important part for clarity: "setup" is not a verb. It's simply not.

This site is dedicated to educating people about the common misuses of w ords like "setup." It is meant for both non-native speakers w ho may
not know any better, and for native speakers w ho should know better but don't. It is in no w ay a substitute for a real education. Poor grammar
is an excellent w ay 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.

Abo ut Ve r bs

Conjugation
It is possible to conjugate verbs. They can change tense and mood. They can change number and person. You w ill see how even basic
conjugation fails for "setup."

Verb: "Conjugate"

Here are some examples w ith the verb "conjugate." If you doubt that "conjugate" is a verb (or need to look up w hat it means), definitions from
dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster agree. Note that, as w ith many verbs, noun forms exist. Here w e'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 w ith a w eak 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 w eak.

Verb: "Setup" (?)

As a new verb, "setup" should follow the regular, w eak model that "conjugate" exemplifies. Unfortunately, it does not:

Singular Plural
Person Pronoun Verb Pronoun Verb
1st I setup we setup
2nd you setup you [all] setup
3rd he/she/it setups they setup

Notice the problem w ith the third person singular. How ever, let's choose to ignore this problem for now . After all, w e can't let one little
conjugation problem make thousands of programmers and technical w riters look like fools. Plow ing right ahead, w e'll look at the past tense:

Singular Plural
Person Pronoun Verb Pronoun Verb
1st I setuped we setuped
2nd you setuped you [all] setuped
3rd he/she/it setuped they setuped

Unfortunately, not a single one of those sounds right. It seems that "setup" can't change tense or conjugate like a normal verb.

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9/24/2010 "Setup" is not a verb
A Strong Verb?
Many older verbs are strong verbs, meaning they change tense by modifying an internal vow el or diphthong. As you w ill 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 vow el (instead of adding "ed" at the end, for example). "Setup" does
not do that, so it's not a strong verb.

A Separate Verb?
Some grammarians w ill call this a "phrasal" or "tw o-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 tw o-part verb must have tw o parts
and setup only has one. The follow ing list of setup's component parts demonstrates this fact.

1. Part 1: setup
2. Part 2:

Having only one part, setup cannot be a tw o-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 set up we set up
2nd you set up you [all] set up
3rd he/she/it sets up they set up

The past tense is also predictable:

Singular Plural
Person Pronoun Verb Pronoun Verb
1st I set up we set up
2nd you set up you [all] set up
3rd he/she/it set up they set up
It appears the verb is "set," w hich behaves like a regular w eak verb" . The verb form is not a verb at all, but an idiom of a verb and a
preposition, like "break dow n" or "shake up." In fairness to some grammarians, this kind of idiom sometimes has the name "phrasal verb" or
"tw o-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 "set up" idiom unusual, but far more plausible than pretending that w e have an irregular verb "setup" w ith
something like "setup" as a past participle. No other verb in the American language behaves that w ay. Even in the arcane, deprecated
predecessor of American (English), no verb behaves that w ay.

What i s i t ?

As I indicated earlier, I'm sure you can find purists w ho w ill argue "setup" is not a w ord at all. For the sake of discussion, I w ill assume it is a
w ord because I do not care one w ay or another. Let's look at some possibilities:

Adjective
Adjectives describe nouns. Let's put "setup" w ith some other adjectives ("stupid" and "alabaster") to see how w ell they play w ith each other:
The cat is stupid. It is a stupid cat.
The cat is alabaster. It is an alabaster cat.
The book is setup. It is a setup book.
"Setup" doesn't w ork w ell as an adjective.

Adverb

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9/24/2010 "Setup" is not a verb
Adverbs are to verbs w hat adjectives are to nouns. Adverbs describe verbs (or, more accurately, the verb actions). Here are some sentences
w ith adverbs. See if you can tell w hich does not belong:
The car runs smoothly.
The car runs quietly.
The car runs setup setuply.
"Setup" doesn't w ork w ell as an adverb.

Noun
Any fourth grader w ill 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 pow ers to display ow nership of the noun "book" and then modify it:

Owned I have a book.

Modified I have a secret book.

I ow n the book, then make it a secret book. Truly, that is grand. Now I w ill do the same for "setup."

Owned I have a setup.

Modified I have a secret setup.

"Setup," it seems, w orks as a noun.

Concl usi on

Clearly "setup" is not a verb. It's simply not. If it is any part of speech at all, it is a noun. While w e did not explore every possible part of speech,
w e saw w ith certainty that "setup" is not a verb. It's simply not.

If you take only one thing aw ay from this page, take that one fact: "setup" is not a verb. Educate others. Correct manuals, softw are, and w eb
pages as you find them. Tell everyone you know that "setup" is not a verb. You w ill make a pedant (me) happy. You w ill earn the respect of
grammar nazis. Most importantly, you w ill know the truth.

Solutions
Magnanimousness demands that I offer solutions, or correct forms of some of the common abuses of "setup" Here are some suggestions,
assuming you prefer to use "setup" as a w ord rather than take a more conservative approach and insist the proper form is "set up" or "set-up."

Common Use Correction

Can you setup? Can you set up?
I tried to setup . . . . I tried to set up . . . .
Enter your name at the setup prompt. (This is acceptab le)
Please setup again. Please set up again.

What Next
What you do w ith this information is, of course, your choice. As I mentioned above, how ever, the ideal choice is to use this know ledge for good
and correct errors. The more correct examples people see, the more people w ill stop believing the lie that this is a verb.

You can also continue your education by learning about other w ords that are not verbs.

For entertainment you can read a sarcastic rebuttal to the argument that setup really is a verb and the language simply has evolved.

http://notaverb.com/setup 3/3