A verb or not a verb, that is the question

I chose to minor in professional editing in college, so I'm one of those people who find reading a chapter about semicolon usage to be joyable and the difference between who and whom to be more fun of a challenge than Sudoku is. So when we were given a mini grammar lesson at orientation, to remember that "intern" is a noun and not a verb, I quietly chided myself: "Oh my God, I've been using it as a verb all my life. Why has no one ever corrected me?"

Mental note: "I must, must, must remember this!!"How exciting it was, a new grammar rule.(Hopefully a group of journalists won't find that comment above to be as nerdy as my non-journalism friends would.)

But in an interaction with Merriam-Webster, this excitement quickly turned to confusion:

Main Entry: in·tern

Pronunciation: 'in-"t&rn, in'

Function: transitive verb: to confine or impound especially during a war - in·tern·ee /(")in-"t&r-'nE/ noun- in·tern·ment /in-'t&rn-m&nt, 'in-"/ noun

Main Entry: in·ternPronunciation: 'in-"t&rn

Function: intransitive verb: to work as an intern

Not only is intern a verb according to M-W, it could be both a transitive and an intransitive verb. Uh oh. I contacted my other favorite internet friend, consultant Google News,who tells me to "search and browse 4,500 news sources updated continuously." Perfect, will do. The word "interning" went into the search box and out spouted this:

Results 1 - 10 of about 142 for interning. (0.34 seconds)

I skim through to find if there are any big name papers, not that they're necessarily always grammatically correct, but you know. Dallas Morning News has an article with "I'll be interning at a local TV news station..."

The Tennessean --whose managing editor (my lovely dinner neighbor) might be just as big of an ice cream fan as me, or dare I say, an even bigger one -- used the sentence: "While a student at Belmont, Smith spent nine months in Chicago interning for Winfrey's...." in a recentarticle.

A search at nytimes.com brings up over 100 articles that use the word "interning," most of which are used as verbs. So maybe, just maybe it's OK to say that I'm very, very excited about *interning* at The Orange County Register next month?

Hmmm, Dick Thien, can you confirm? :)

-- Cathy Tran, Spring Scholar, The Orange County (Calif.) Register and the University of California-Santa Barbara
... who still has lots to learn about grammar!

Editor's note: Dick Thien says that the English language does change. If a word is used enough, it becomes acceptable. There are many sources on language. The dictionary is always the most authoritative source. (But do read John Bremner's Words on Words.) Webster's New World Dictionary (Third College Edition) lists "intern" first as a noun. Until it lists "intern" as a verb (not a transitive verb), it's not acceptable usage. Have fun working as an intern at the Register.