embetterment?? Idiot??

[Mark A Mandel]

On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, yvonne frasure wrote:

[1]
#   Although embetterment is not in the dictionary (not in mine
#anyway), one could assume by definition of other words such as
#embellishing, embarkation, embattle, etc....that embetterment could be
#an acceptable term.  "the act of making something better" or "making a
#situation or individual better"

        [...]

[2]
#(Of course, I kinda like EMBETTERMENT--it seems to fill a semantic hole.)

[2] "Betterment", "improvement"; what hole?

[1] One can always assume, but many assumptions are unwarranted.  One
can also wonder if Bush was trying for "betterment". Then there's
"embitterment", which differs from his coinage only by a common vowel
already heard, "*embetterment".  And of the three "emb..." words you
mention, "embellishing/ embellishment" provides no template --
"*bellish"?  "*bell" [in the sense of 'beauty', in English]? -- and
"embarkation" is not much better.

        "The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow"
                -- The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll

-- Mark A. Mandel