What Does That Word Mean

During elementary school the number of words in our language amazed and confounded me. Each week, our class would receive a new set of words to define, use in a sentence, and spell for Friday tests. More words came as I traveled through college and graduate school, and then another set appeared as I taught advanced placement English in high school. So, with all the words already in our language, by some accounts between one-half to one million words, is there a need to create new ones?

            The creation of new words continues and has been measured to be as many as 25,000 a year. That takes into consideration technical terms, but what befuddles me is the inclusion of made-up words and phrases by advertising and jargon-living twerps. Consider some of the following:

 

Trickeration—used by morons who explain that someone or something acted in a deceptive way. The real word is trickery.

 

Elevate—used to mean jump, as in a basketball player jumping for a rebound. Could it be that before long these athletes will be shooting elevation shots?

 

Elusivity—used to mean hard to pin down or corral. In older times, the word elusiveness worked just fine, but then again, it doesn’t roll from a fool’s tongue quite the way the new word does.

 

Disintermediation—This is one of those finance words. In short, it means “cut out the middle man. Why not just say that? Oh, maybe it’s another way to use double-speak so customers don’t have an idea of what’s going on.

 

Intestinal Transit Time—I always called this digestion. Of course, being a simple country boy, I might be wrong or just unsophisticated. Use of this phrase brings to mind other words associated with digestion.

 

Unpartnered Individuals—When did being single become a bad word? Perhaps this new creation is more politically correct. If so, I’ll continue offending lone individuals.

 

Oppositional Defiance Disorder—A diagnosis described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as “an ongoing pattern of anger guided disobedience, hostilely defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior.” I used to call it being a teenager or just a child. My parents weren’t psychologists, but they knew the remedies for such an ODD. One was a “come to Jesus meeting” with them and a belt or paddle in hand. The other was to offer to help me pack my bags when I threatened to leave home and never come home again. Those were harsh treatments, maybe, but they worked most effectively.

 

Grow a business, economy, etc.—In my world, growing is an act confined to such things as fruits and vegetables. An owner might “develop” a business so that it flourishes, but growing these kinds of things object just doesn’t work for me. Of course, I’m not savvy in the business world, so perhaps I’m behind the learning curve.

 

Early on—This is supposed to mean at some earlier time, and some pretentious individual, most likely from television, decided to put it into use. I despise this convoluted misused phrase most of all. In the first place, “on” is a preposition, and as we all learned, a preposition must have a noun/pronoun coming after it (an object). So, what I ask is “early on whom” or “early on what?” For hundreds of years, people got along just fine with the use of “earlier.” Why isn’t that good enough anymore?

 

            I’ve had my say; I’ve finished my rant. The possibility that such nonsense will be eradicated from our language is nil. Before long, none of us will be able to communicate with each other, but until then,  I’ll continue to fuss about goofy words and hold out hope that English doesn’t become a foreign language.