Pat Helland coins[1] a useful phrase : "Behavior turds". Imperatives masquerading as declaratives.
The distinction between nouns and verbs is very fuzzy at the boundaries where I spend a lot of time. A key skill in Enterprise Architecture (a really *key* skill) is an awareness about the subtleties of human language. (Example: You have never, ever sent an e-mail. The bits you composed in your machine get copied - not sent - to the destination machine.)
A lot of the REST versus WS-* babbelogue revolves around folk being divided by a common (human) language. If the phrase "System A sends X to system B" by far the most tricky and subtle word is the word "sends". I wrote about this some time ago :
I'll push and you pull. The mashup approach to application integration and it will be the subject of my talk at
Barcamp GalwayI would suggest that an important part of any EAI architects training should be some quality time spent learning about
Speech Acts, about Frege & Russell on
is and the referential theory of
proper names etc.
[1] A self-referential giggle : The word '
coin'. An example in English of a noun used to coin a corresponding verb = the word 'coin' :-)