Word of the Day: Real words and pseudo-words

Every now and then I create a post title “Word of the Day”. Most of the time it’s because I’ve come across some new word (or pseudo-word) in something I’ve read.

Sometimes these are real words that I’ve never come across.

More often they are pseudo-words, they look like real words but actually they are something that someone has invented.

Every now and then we I come across a word that I am sure is a pseudo-word only to find out it’s a real word, “burglarized” was my favourite example of this.

Dilbert summarised this phenomenon wonderfully this weekend:

Speaking as someone who is paid to think about how people collaborate I think there are many reasons why we see the use of pseudo-words.

I’m sure for some people they are an attempt to assert their thinking into a situation or organisation. It’s a demonstration of your influence within an organisation if you can invent a word, spit it out, and hove others using it. I once had a manager who invented a new phrase every week, he would use it for a week and see how long it took before it was said back to him. He would also see how obscure he could make it and see whether anyone had the balls to ask what the phrase meant.

I suspect for others that the issue is actually laziness. Rather than trying to construct a proper sentence they try to create a word for it. By creating a short-hand the concept becomes easier to communicate. The most recent example of this would be the pseudo-word “de-portalize“. Everyone within the IT architecture community knows exactly what it means, but it’s not a real word. It’s short-hand for something that those who need to understand will understand.

Once upon a time..ah no I won’t say that I’ll leave it for the 5 things that Stuart has tagged me for.