Okay, everyone uses words. Some of us are better with them than others, but like any other tool, there are some uses that are just wrong. Some uses, while possible, damage the tool and the work, and pose a risk of harm (or at least ridicule) to the tool user.
Which, I suppose, is a fancy way of saying that some things people do with words just honk me off. With that idea clearly in mind, the following is a list of things that people just shouldn't do with words.
Word Transmogrification¹:
Now, my best friend (at least the best one I'm not married to) once commented that "Any word can be verbed." True enough, and aptly put. However, some modifications, addenda, and downright mutilation is just wrong. I actually saw a document that contained the WLS² "incentivizational". Let's break that down, shall we?
INCENTIVIZATIONAL - This is purporting, it seems, to be an adverb.
INCENTIVIZATION - This appears to be a bizarre conjugation formed by transmogrifying the verb-ish "incentivize".
INCENTIVIZE - This seems to be an attempt at "verbing"³ the RW noun "incentive".
INCENTIVE - An honest-to-Webster noun, meaning "an act or thing that incents (i.e. motivates one towards action)".
INCENT - A real verb, and the origin of this calamitous mangling of the language.
Why, pray tell, are we making up fancy-sounding words to create nouns and verbs, where perfectly useful words already exist! If you need an adverb, "incenting" works just fine, thanks! Perhaps the worst part is that it is educated people doing this! Argggggggggggh!
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1 My thanks to my High School classmate, Bill Watterson, who both invented the word, and gave us the memorable character who used it.
2 WLS = "Word-Like String", not a RW (Real Word), but a string of characters that looks like one.
3 "Any word can be verbed." - Daniel Nathan Wiebe
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