Growing The Language
Posted on | March 14, 2007 at 5:35 pm | 1 Comment
So, Diana Ross was on American Idol last night, giving advice to the young, beautiful hopefuls who were covering her songs on stage and about to have their dreams crushed. She kept using the word “pronounciated”, which I’m pretty sure isn’t a real word. I think she realized pretty quickly it wasn’t a real word, but decided that if she said it over and over again, people would think it was a real word and she wouldn’t look as dumb. This is actually a pretty smart tactic, and I think I will start to employ it.
My logic is irrefutilable. I’m sure those of you who are word extremthusiasts (I’m looking at you, 2fs, InfK and Janet) will try to invalidict me, but your cause is predestinated to fail. Defying me would be impracticable. Oh wait, that’s a real word. See, it’s working already!
Latre.
Comments
One Response to “Growing The Language”
March 14th, 2007 @ 9:25 pm
Hey, which supreme court went and made you the decider? What’s amusing is that, essentially, the Ross-Winston Theorem (as I have now christened it) is correct, with some minor qualifications. A protoword is more readily accepted if it is well-formed (that is, from recognizable roots combined in ways that do not make linguists’ hair fall out), if it fills a gap in the language’s meaning structures (i.e., there’s a need for such a word), and (most importantly) if other people use it. Every year, editors of dictionaries have to decide whether to include new words in their editions, and whether those words included should be labeled in any particular way.
So, yes: in this matter, you are indefuctible.