I'm beginning to think that linguistic prescriptivism is going to have a hard time holding up against the crazy mixing bowl that is the Internet and, to a wider extent, globalization. It's fun to play grammar nazi and all, but I've started to resign to the fact that people are simply going to do what they're going to do. Look at the state of English only a couple centuries ago. Language evolves quickly.<p>Who's to say login can't become a verb? "Google" and "email" did. Busily propping up websites like this with guides and corrections is like a finger in the dike.
Not worth getting upset about. Personally, I'm more concerned that we're going to lose the word "lose". Everywhere I look, I see people sticking an extra o in there. "You loose" etc.
<p><pre><code> "First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing
because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival
for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no
verbs."
-- Peter Ellis.
</code></pre>
And from the wonderful Calvin and Hobbes:<p><pre><code> Calvin: I like to verb words.
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them
as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing?
Now, it's something you do. It got verbed.
Verbing weirds language.
Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a
complete impediment to understanding.</code></pre>
Cute, but English has tens of thousands of "phrasal verbs": Stand up, stand down, stand out, stand over, stand against, <i>understand</i>.<p>Even more remarkable is that native speakers use these constructions all of the time, yet the idea of a phrasal verb is apparently not taught in school.
People out there seriously think "login" is a verb? Why make things complicated? You just forgot the space. The usage of the verbs "log" and "sign" (as in "log in" and "sign in") is clearly a metaphor for the paper forms ("logs") used for buildings, equipment cabinets, etc.<p>Here's a visual aid: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/riggzy/3177839298/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/riggzy/3177839298/</a><p>Also see meanings 6 and 13 at <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/log" rel="nofollow">http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/log</a>.
Ok, <i>login</i> isn't technically a verb... yet. Fact of the matter is, any language is an evolving form of communication (except maybe latin at this point). Along with words like <i>signup</i>, <i>setup</i>, etc, these words are nearly ubiquitous on the web, and widely accepted/understood.<p><i>...we can't let one little conjugation problem make thousands of programmers and technical writers look like fools</i><p>"login is not a verb" + "many websites use it as a navigation element" != "programmers look like fools"<p>I could use a simple <i>door with an arrow</i> image for logging in as well. That image is not a word at all. Yet it would still serve as an effective navigation element.<p>Also, who says that all websites intend for it to be a verb anyway? I have another navigation called "account". I do not want users to <i>account the site</i>. I simply want them to know that is the <i>account page</i>. Likewise, "login" signifies that is the link to the <i>login page</i>, for which this article granted that it may be used as a noun.<p>Ok, I've spent entirely too much time on this subject.
Login can be a verb, we just haven't collectively decided how to conjugate it. Correct in language is usually more a function of convention rather than functionality. There just aren't rules to handle this. It can either be "he logs in" where we just revert to the two word version, which appears to be the most common approach, or you just conjugate and recombine. "He logsin". This is harder to recognize and pronounce so I prefer the former. Eventually, the matter will get settled by convention and then grammar nazis will nitpick people for not knowing the rules for conjugating verb phrases correctly.
Login = log in without the space, just like some people use awhile as an adverb whereas a while is the correct usage everywhere else (some people just use a while everywhere). Log is the real verb. I logged in to the website.
<i>No other verb in the American language behaves that way. Even in the arcane, deprecated predecessor of American (English), no verb behaves that way. </i><p>Wait, what? <i>American</i> language? <i>Deprecated predecessor</i>? Somebody really seems to hate the English people. The name of the language is still English. American English. Just as the language they speak in Australia is Australian English.
See here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Countries_in_order_of_total_speakers" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Countries_in_o...</a>
I think it's almost silly to admit "log in" has the correct meaning and then quibble about the orthography. I'd contend that it very much is a verb in the same vein of phrasal and separable verbs as found in, e.g., German and English. The fact that to log and to login are different is curious enough. If I were a betting man, I'd say this is part of a lexical entry that composes the verb, and being non-finite, is left in its generated position as the finite portion becomes tensed. Regardless, usage trumps all.
"Asinine fascist unwilling to brook dialogue (thus, no contact or comments on the web site) and unwilling to consider that English is English precisely because it has no rules that cannot change, and thus became the international lingua franca" is a longish phrase.<p>It simply is.
Language mutates, often in unfortunate ways. "Login" is not actually a verb if you follow the "rules" of English. You log in. "Log" is the verb. As much as it bugs me, though, I've learned to accept misuses becoming the norm; this is hardly the first time a word has evolved from butchery. There used to be a billboard in SF on which a gym advertised that you could "workout in your pajamas!" I've learned to grimace inwardly about that, "alot", "alright", and other "violations". Because -- as in the case of "alright", we already have ... "already".
If login isn't a verb then why when i try to comment does it prompt me to "login"?<p>Example: Please login to comment.
Example: Please exit to your right.<p>Yeah, that's what I thought.