Even Greener Pastures

Well, in written German, the noun is distinguished by a capital letter. But in theory, you could Essen essen (eat food), ein Schreiben schreiben (write a formal letter) and Tragen tragen (carry stretchers). I've cheated on the last one, though, as the singular of "stretcher" is Trage. In practice, you don't, because it just sounds really silly.
Anyway, the number of nouns which also work as a verb is quite limited*. Usually, it's the same as in Czech: the verbs will either get a prefix (etwas mit Decken bedecken - to cover something with blankets), a vowel change (Milch -> melken - milk, to milk), or the verb's got nothing to do with the noun (Unkraut jäten - to pull weeds)

*That's as long as you exclude activities, signalled in English by -ing, in German by an article and a capital letter:
rauchen (to smoke) - das Rauchen (the activity of smoking)
lesen (to read) - das Lesen (the activity of reading)
jäten (to weed) - das Jäten (the activity of weeding)
That works for every single German verb.

Side note: I've just come up with Sie band ein Band um den Band (She tied a ribbon round the tome) and am sharing it with you for curiosity's sake. 

Yes, I was taught that old trick in German 40 years ago, or more, that you could always take a verb and make a noun into it by just capitalizing it, since all nouns are capitalized in German (a rule I really like, because English drives me nuts trying to recall which nouns are capitalized and which are not. I can never remember if it‘s supposed to be monday, or Monday (the auto-correct just gave me the answer)). But, I was frankly always a little suspicious of taking a German verb and just making a noun out of it anytime I wanted, and am somewhat hesitant to do that now, unless I hear a native speaker doing it. It‘s just that German has so many synonyms and such a rich and broad vocabulary, it just seemed sort of a cheap shot of sorts, and maybe a bit lazy, to take a verb and make a noun out of it like that. I can‘t say I‘ve noticed an overuse of it, but once my friend in Germany did it, and she’s highly educated, and wrote, „vielen Dank für Dein Schreiben ....“ then I felt ok with it.

My favorite German Professor from Hamburg, probably taught me more than anyone. But, that was back in the 80s. I recall asking her if a certain word in English existed in German (and I only spoke German with her. I have no idea how she even sounded speaking English) and she said, „Steven, we have all the same words in German as in English.“ I never believed her, because it sounded too simple to be true. Sure, it was a generalization, but in some ways I have found it to be surprisingly true more often than I would have thought. There are many „false friends“ out there, so you have to be a bit careful, more nuanced and not assume too much. Then I‘d encounter verbs like „suggerieren“ , to suggest, „akzeptieren“, to accept, and on and on. Things like that made me think what she told me wasn’t too far from the truth. Maybe they all come from French or something. But, there are so many alternatives too. And the actual use these sorts of verbs really might be limited.

But, then Frau Dr. Stock had a rather interesting German vocabulary.  Coming from Hamburg, she must have picked it up there, but she did use a lot of nouns which were a bit dated (at least according to Duden).

Like she would rarely say „das Wörterbuch“, instead preferring „das Diktionär.“ (My spell-checker is flagging this in red like it‘s not a real German word.) Der Wortschatz was always, das Vokabular, but that later word is not archaic and Duden states it has a more specialized meaning to it. Nonetheless, it is a word, even if Duden lists it as veraltend, but it does have a specialized meaning, „(fremdsprachliches Wörterbuch)“. So, it‘s a translating dictionary, not just a Duden or Websters. To me it sounds like a useful word, so why it’s old-fashioned I have no idea. But, in that sense, it‘s probably a better or more specific word if you are talking about a translating dictionary. I still use the word occasionally if I want to raise a few eyebrows. And, with her it was always, „die Bücherei“ and never „die Bibliothek.“ According to my word usage frequency chart from DWDS, die Bücherei scores only a 1 and is currently falling off in usage while die Bibliothek scores a 10. I never could figure out with her if it was just a regional thing with her, the words she used, or she was just speaking 1920s and 1930s era German. But, I always noticed the words she used more closely appeared English-like than the alternatives.

My all-time favorite German expression, which Frau Dr. Stock always used with us, was „zum Exempel“ as opposed to the familiar „zum Beispiel.“ Duden lists this as „(bildungsspr. veraltend) (Lehr)Beispiel: nimm dir an deinem Bruder, an seinem Vorgehen ein Exempel; etwas zum Exempel nehmen.“ A modern exception where Exempel is not dead, is „ein Exempel an jemandem statuieren.“

I was heartbroken when I found out that „zum Exempel“ was out, since I loved that alternative to zum Beispiel, since it was just like English. Sort of like with das Diktionär.

I asked my German friend about „zum Exempel“ a few summers ago, and she said, „You can forget that one Steve.“ What a heartbreak! Maybe if you walked around Berlin and tossed out a „zum Exempel“ once in a while you‘d probably get some odd looks. It would be an interesting experiment. I did, however, see this written once in a really old German text, I think one dating to the late 1700s or something.

But, who can make sense of vocabulary in a language. It comes and goes I suppose. What rather annoys me nowadays are the overly frequent and totally unnecessary adoption into German of English words like, „sorry, hi, Airport“ and so on. What in the world do we need these words for when there are so many REAL German words to use instead. I avoid these words in German, if I can. Why say „der Airport“ when der Flughafen has been around forever? I can understand the loan words for internet usage, that I get. But, „sorry“???

And, how come „zum Exempel“ has gone the way of the dinosaur when it looks just like the English, for example?