Crazy Talk

Pneumonia is a difficult word to spell, the kind you can type a letter for, backspace, type a letter, backspace, on and on until you get what you think looks right. My sister, even as an adult, used to pronounce it Pee-New-Monie, and oddly, we all knew what she meant.

This is the same sister who has a similar disdain for certain words that I have and offers substitutes when she hears an objectionable one. If someone were to say they had a zit (cringe) or even a pimple (shudder), she would say, "It's called a blemish." I think the softness of the -ish improves on the other words and makes the actual thing less repulsive. While a person might gasp at the site of a zit (cringe), they would likely just shrug at the site of a blemish. It's not unlike a danish or a radish, and who doesn't like those?

This same sister, when her son was a baby, would rename her child's various bodily noises. The poor boy never burped or belched--he bubbled. He didn't fart or even pass gas--he fluffed. Fluffed! If ever there was a boy who farted, it was that one.

My husband has developed a system of modifying nouns by adding a variety of word endings. Someone who has gas doesn't fluff but is gasocious or is full of gasosity. My nephew was a burpocious infant.

I have a friend who adds -able to words to create new forms. If he feels particularly chatty, he is talkable. Some girls are flirtable and some aren't. Some jackasses are slappable and some or more likely to be shot--they are shootable. While I don't usually mind when people add a Y to words--talky as opposed to talkable--I think this tends to make people sound a little juvenile. If you're going to rewrite the language, at least sound like an adult when you do it.

I understand wanting to make the world less harsh by using softer descriptive words, but I have wondered why we rewrite our language as much as we do. Are we bored with it as is? Are the adjectives and adverbs less suitable for newer generations? Do people of other languages play with their words in the same way? I won't attempt to play with Portuguese given the butchery I performed on it in an exchange with Dive recently (no link to that comment box here because it was shameful, or shamey, or shameable). It was shameish.

I have learned to correctly spell pneumonia in order to look it up on webmd.com, an indispensable guide for those of us who have no idea how to care for our unhealthy loved ones--it's helpful or helpy. It's helpable. This morning while my daughter watches the pile of movies I picked up at Blockbuster, and she hacks up phlegm from the base of her lungs, I would prefer that she remove fluid or be less coughy, not as coughocious. I would like her to be quietly coughable, and I bet she wishes she were only just a bit coughish.