I stumbled upon Richard Serra’s Verb List and thought to myself how cool it would be if testers had a verb list to refer to.
Serra famously said, “Drawing is a verb.” In Verblist , he compiled a series of what he called “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process.” Serra has talked at length about the central place this language-based drawing occupies in the development of his early sculptural practice. This work on paper suggests a common ground underlying Serra’s practices in all mediums—from early sculptures to later monumental works, which not only twist and curve but also enclose, surround, and encircle. It shows Serra’s debt to action painting and his proximity to Conceptual and performance practices; the list was published in the journal Avalanche in 1971 and testifies to the artist’s close relationship to dancers like Yvonne Rainer and Simone Forti, with whom he shared not only a milieu but a commitment to carrying out verbs.
The list is a work of art in handwritten below, I have also copied the list over in text format for easy readability and accessibility.
to roll
to crease
to fold
to store
to bend
to shorten
to twist
to dapple
to crumple
to shave
to tear
to chip
to split
to cut
to sever
to drop
to remove
to simplify
to differ
to disarrange
to open
to mix
to splash
to knot
to spill
to droop
to flow
to curve
to lift
to inlay
to impress
to fire
to flood
to smear
to rotate
to swirl
to support
to hook
to suspend
to spread
to hang
to collect
of tension
of gravity
of entropy
of nature
of grouping
of layering
of felting
to grasp
to tighten
to bundle
to heap
to gather
to scatter
to arrange
to repair
to discard
to pair
to distribute
to surfeit
to compliment
to enclose
to surround
to encircle
to hole
to cover
to wrap
to dig
to tie
to bind
to weave
to join
to match
to laminate
to bond
to hinge
to mark
to expand
to dilute
to light
to modulate
to distill
of waves
of electromagnetic
of inertia
of ionization
of polarization
of refraction
of tides
of reflection
of equilibrium
of symmetry
of friction
to stretch
to bounce
to erase
to spray
to systematize
to refer
to force
of mapping
of location
of context
of time
of carbonization
to continue
If software testers could have a verb list, what would you include in it?
to advocate
to build
to catch
to dissect
to elaborate
to find
to grow
to help
to inspire
to juggle
to learn
to make
to nudge
to open
to push
to quit
to repeat
to share
to talk
to unify
to verify
to wait
to x-ray
to zoooooooooom
Don’t forget that test is a verb! Testing is activities, not artifacts. Too often I hear the word only used as a noun (e.g. “writing tests”) or an adjective (e.g. “test cases”), so I like reminding people that you can test without those things.
I like the way Blooms Taxonomy/Classification for learning maps into training not just for young, but also for the any folk who might not think they are still learning.
My ability this weekend, to recall a task I once knew well recently failed at the last 2 stages, Creating/Synthesis and Evaluating of the whole finished product. I had to solder on a new headphone jack. This meant ordering a roughly appropriate spare part , then taking it apart violently to start, both the spare ordering and the start of the task scored low, but passable because the spare part was a bit bulky, and the disassembly was a butcher’s job! Then I had to redo most of the steps, due to incorrect order of assembly. A task I would have completed easily long ago, took double the time. I’m glad I was able to use a lot of “Concepts” knowledge from similar unrelated tasks to unblock me as well, which linked directly to Blooms Taxomony requiring the learner be able to abstract the task when executing it, and relate what they do to the final product. This was because of a particular kind of wire used lately in headphones I had never encountered in this kind of task before. I had previously avoided this task it must be noted. So proving that I had grasped the transition from abstract to concrete with this new change in the wire used.
If software testers could have a verb list, what would you include in it?
