Re: Re: † † † Fwd: Comment for the ADS Webmaster

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I didn't mean these questions to be merely rhetorical, no--I agree with 
Peter. Consider:

"Apparently, as soon as the power is restored, our telephone and computer 
connections will
also be restored.I will continue to work on this situation. Hopefully, we may 
be able
to have some connectivity by tomorrow." 

--Memo received today from the Director, First-Year Writing Program, Duke 
University.

I only have one dictionary with me on vacation, and it has an entry for 
CONNECTIVITY in this sense, so I guess it has been around for a while--but 
perhaps not very long, I'd guess. Was the person who coined this term any 
less of a mangler than Bush was with his "embetterment"? 

(Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.)
In a message dated 1/2/03 5:36:19 PM, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes:


> I assume that Ron's questions are intended to be rhetorical, but I think
> they would have merit as serious questions bearing on which coinages gain
> wide acceptance and which ones don't.
> 
> Peter Mc.
> 
> --On Thursday, January 2, 2003 1:32 PM -0500 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> 
> > This is so funny! How do we know that a new word is a "manglement" and
> > not a  clever new usage? Is anything that George Bush says a mangling
> > just because  many people think he is an idiot?
>