If We Add a Word to the English Language, Let's Discontinue One - Sunday Commentary

If We Add a Word to the English Language, Let's Discontinue One

Sunday, Jul 06, 2008 - 12:05 AM

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By LEWIS F. BRISSMAN

The English language needs to go on a diet.

I can open the dictionary to any random page and frequently find a word we probably could do without. Just now I flipped to Page 380 of Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, and learned that dehisce means to split open along definite structural lines, as the seedpods of legumes.

Next random stop: Page 1102, where plash (a shallow pool or puddle) and plashy (full of puddles, wet, marshy) undoubtedly get no attention. They're the linguistic equivalent of the kid who is picked last for kickball, though probably more popular than lonely neighbor planula (the ciliated larva of a cnidarian).

Ciliated? Ah yes, from high school biology. Cnidarian? Ah yes, from "Star Trek: Wrath of the Cnidarian."

English -- with a strong basis in Germanic, French, and Latin languages -- is indeed a language of accumulation, and we take words from all over and make them our own (though in fairness, we did give the French le chewing gum in return). And while that democratic approach may be part of our beauty, it's certainly part of our bloat.

Experts can give you different estimates for how many words are in the English language -- 250,000? 750,000? -- but there's not even agreement on what a word is. (To use an example from AskOxford.com, how would you count dog -- which can be your pet or a verb meaning to follow persistently? And is dog-tired its own word or just two other words united?) But when the Chicago Tribune wrote a recent story in which Paul J.J. Payack, who runs Global Language Monitor, said English this year could reach 1 million words, by his definition, it seemed time for a new approach.

From now on, if we're going to add a word to the English language, I say we delete one, too. In times of energy conservation and belt-tightening and blah blah blah -- I vote that we retain blah -- then let's trim down our mother tongue.

Here are some random starting points.

Comprise -- Do we need this synonym for include, particularly when there's sensitivity about correct usage? Purists will say our nation comprises 50 states, not that the country "is comprised of" 50 states. But if we can easily say America includes or consists of or simply has 50 states, why not just say that? In our kinder, gentler, and slimmer language, we can skip this sore point.

Inclement -- Have you ever used this adjective without the word weather behind it? For that matter, have you ever used it at all? Maybe you've heard the weatherman say it, and your HR department might tell you about an inclement weather policy. But here's my policy: Erase this word, and simply call bad or stormy weather . . . well, bad or stormy.

Whom -- I'm not completely objective about my objection to the objective form of who. You might scoff if Hemingway wrote "For Who the Bell Tolls" or if someone began a letter with "To Who It May Concern." But do you gasp when someone says "Who did you see there?" Probably not. So in a nod to evolving usage and the joys of consistency, maybe we can leave whom behind.

Synergy -- There's classical Greek beauty in this word, which means combined or cooperative action, but the echoes of modern business consultants keep ringing in the background. Of course, we could knock out a whole bunch of words that have become workplace jargon, but my paradigm embraces a wider approach.

Utilize -- Don't use it, my colleague, Jay, says.

Sluice -- An artificial channel or passage for water. This word just bothers me.

You are welcome to share your ideas by e-mailing me at copydesk@timesdispatch.com. For now, I will . . .

Discontinue -- Yeah, let's end this right here.
Lewis F. Brissman is director of news production and works with the language-sensitive editors at the Copy Desk. His vocabulary frequently is more colorful than the words listed above.