Everyone reading this knows some degree of English. It's a formal language. One that is taught in schools around the world and not made up by some people around a table eating BBQ sandwiches. I don't think that a person should be allowed to randomly place a bunch of letters together and call it a word, unless your name is Webster. On the day that this story took place, I wasn't eating lunch with Webster. I was eating lunch with my family.
While we were eating BBQ at the Whistling Pig restaurant I asked Cari how her sandwich was. She replied, "Barbequey".
"That's not a word.", I argued. In fact, spell check agrees with that statement as I type this now.
Others were joining our conversation at this point. Becky said the sauce she used was mustardey. The girls argued that adding "-ey" to your word as a descriptive modifier was perfectly acceptable.
Perhaps it was acceptable to each other, but not to me. They asked me if I understood what they meant by saying something was "potatoey". I had to admit that I understood the context but that didn't make it correct. I can understand a lot of gibberish people throw at me, but being understood is not a sign of being correct.
The discussion turned to acceptable words that use "-ey".
The weather could be sunny, cloudy, or even stormy. "Yep," I argued, "those are real words". Unlike warmy weather or telling someone that it is a bit "coldy".
Your shirt is pink in the English language. In this argument your shirt is pinkey.
Look at her... isn't she cheerleaderey? Huh?
I believe this modification to make all words descriptive is laziness. You have eliminated three or four words to get your point across in one. Maybe you spend too much time on Twitter. These words seem very Twitterey.
4 comments:
Twittery, texty and facebooky... I add -ish to the end of a lot of words instead of -ey, and i find it acceptable in certain formats, but I do know it's not correct.
I agree with Devan, I add -ish to way too many words. I try and keep my words to a minimum on subjects where my vocabulary falls short, so -ey and -ish will fall from my mouth like a waterfall on special occasions.
I'm chiming in as your third commenter with this one but none-the less, here is is:
In our household it's "ish" that is the acceptable addend to any word. Especially when discussing when something will happen. We say, "soonish" or at "1:ish" and that is just understood. Definitely not correct by standard English measures but understood.
Hmmm, personally I like these little nuances people add to their words. Now that I think about it, I wonder if every family has one?
Melba
When I wrote this, I hadn't considered -ish. I also think Melba is right. Families and also work groups often develop words that aren't "official". Words.
As I think about the made up or modified words I imagine all the words in the dictionary that I will never understand. Not a complaint on -ey or -ish words just observation on the language.
Thanks for the comments!
Post a Comment