Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Monday 19 July 2021

A layman's guide to American verb formation.

Take one verb - let's say to oblige
remove the last letter and add -ate
- and you have to obligate.
Now take to remedy
and apply the same method
- and you get to remediate.
And so on.  You can also do 
something similar by simply adding -ize.
To fragment
will thus become to fragmentize.

This is not wayward, but a typical
example of one accumulative way
that languages develop.
(Another way is by word-truncation.*)
Maybe to envelopate will developize
from to envelop.

At any rate, it's futile to resist
developmentalization.


       *
e.g. by reducing alternative to alternate.
         even though alternate already exists
         with a quite different meaning.



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