Conversion -or how English can easily change the lexical category of its words

From : http://www.myshared.ru/slide/1044936/

Now that my honeymoon is completely over and that I have suffered the rough transition back to work I can resume my writing about English quirks. Today, I'm going to speak about a unique quirky characteristic of English, that of conversion. What's that ? It's when you have you change the grammatical category of a word without changing it, without any suffixes or prefixes. Take for example the verb 'help.' You can use it in sentences like 'don't worry. I'll help you.' 'Help' can be transformed into a noun without changing the word as you can see in 'I helped him because he needed some help.' The same happens with the noun drink : 'you can go out for a drink' (noun) or 'drink  some beer.' (verb). 

1) Normally, conversion results in verbification, that is, in the creation of new verbs from other parts of speech. Let's see some examples of this :

- Email is mostly a noun, as in 'send me an email', but thanks to conversion, 'email' became a verb ('he emailed me.')

- Better can be an adjective (as in 'that book is much better') or an adverb ('he speaks better than he used to'). With the passage of time, 'better' has also become a verb, for instance, he is fighting to better his working conditions.

- In the same way, 'best' works frequently as either adjective (the best programme) or adverb (she sings best) but odd though  it may sound you can acceptably use 'best' as a verb : 'Joe bested Mark at videogames'. 

- Salt and pepper are nouns but now you can use them as verbs meaning 'to condiment food with salt and pepper'

- Coat is a piece of clothing for cold weather but conversion has also turned it into a verb meaning 'cover' or 'protect'. This word have even taken some compounds such as 'sugarcoat' (cover something with sugar). 

- Bed frequently refers to the thing you sleep on, but it can also work as a verb meaning 'cover' or 'wrap' (he bedded the china to protect it).

- A house is where people live but, as a verb, it means to welcome people to sleep over (that residence can house up to 1,000 people).

- Phone is something to talk to someone far away, but, as you know, it has become the action (you can phone someone using a phone).

- An eye is a part of the body to see things, but, as a verb, you can eye someone in detail (watch attentively).

- Water is a liquid that all of us need to keep living. Apart from that, it can be used as a verb meaning 'irrigate water to the plants.' You can water the plants. 

From : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg21PmZL1Ao

- Down is usually a preposition or adverb but it can be transformed into a verb (he downed his gun).

2) Sometimes, when conversion takes place in the creation of a verb, a preposition or adverb is needed. In other words, conversion is good at creating phrasal verbs or prepositional verbs. Let's see some examples :

- Butter is a typical ingredient you put on toast, but, as a verb, you can butter up someone (praise and say good things to someone to get something)

- Cheese is a delicious dairy product. However, if something cheeses you off it means it's really annoying. 

3) On other occasions, conversion creates new nouns from verbs.

- You can walk or go for a walk.

- You can swim or have a swim.

- You can run/jog or go for a run/a jog.

- You can go to the cinema or have a go at something (try).

- You must study or studying is a must. 

- There are a lot of things you have to do or you have a lot of do's.

4) Conversion can be used to create new words. 

In the past, Google was just a company, but now you can 'google' something (look for something on the Internet).

In the same way, you can use conversion to invent new words : prepare to be photoed; ketchup the fries (=add ketchup); calendar something (=put it on the calendar). Your creativity has no limits but make sure you get your message across!

Well, conversion is quite interesting, don't you think ? It's part of lexical creativity to create new words and it makes English easier than you can imagine. Can you think of more examples of conversion ? Please, contribute.