Turning nouns into verbs is a normal process in English. Stabbed in the back? You’ve been knifed. Worked to the point of exhaustion? You’ve been hammered.

But when a noun gets verbed in a particular language community it’s also normal for outsiders to be annoyed or indignant. In the world of digital design “architected” has become a popular term. The example given by the Oxford Dictionaries Website is “an architected information interface.”

Various uses of “architect” as a verb have been around for a long time, but technical writers should be aware when writing for general audiences that many readers find this usage annoying. In such contexts, it’s better to use “designed” or “built” when those words convey the same meaning.

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