" functionable"--new word?

Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at UMR.EDU
Sun Jan 14 01:31:07 UTC 2007


    Two good friends recently told me that they had been speaking with an art history student about a building, and the student mentioned that a bulding should be "functionable." My friends were startled by this term, being familiar only with "functional."   Is "functionable" starting to become an acceptable alternative to "functional?"  And is "functionable" possibly a blend of "functional" and "usable"?

Gerald Cohen

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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