NOT A WORD!

[Peter A. McGraw]

--On Tuesday, November 2, 2004 11:31 AM -0800 "Arnold M. Zwicky"
<zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:

> But if it truly isn't done, then there's no need for the admonitions.

And for that very reason, Fiske's book should provide useful material for
some doctoral student a couple of hundred years from now doing a
dissertation on early 21st century AE usage.

A pity Fiske wasn't around when "trepidation" first crept under the tent of
the then doubtless more "pure" English language.  He could have nipped it
in the bud right there, and we would have been spared the misery of hearing
and reading "trepidac/tious" today.

But wait, maybe I missed something.  Is Fiske saying that "trepidacious" is
o.k., if only you eschew the dreaded t when writing it?  In which case,
problem solved!

I suppose we must all have had a reaction similar to Arnold's back in
childhood upon hearing that something "isn't a word."  The first time I ran
into this was when I complained to my 5th-grade teacher that "this sure is
drudgerous work."  Nonplussed when she laughed and said that the word I had
just used "isn't in the dictionary," I asked what word should be used
instead (to make an adjective out of "drudgery"), and was told that there
simply wasn't a way to do it.  I see that even today, "drudgerous" still
"isn't in the dictionary" if the dictionary is the AHD4.  Naturally I
banished the word from my vocabulary after my teacher revealed its
nonexistence to me lo those many years ago, but I've always kind of missed
it.

Peter Mc.


*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************