The Coffee House

Words are great: they make our communication so much easier, quicker and more convenient. There are some that we use pretty much every day: these are part of the core of the English language. Then there are some that are used more rarely, but are still readily-understood on the occasions when we do use them. However, there are some that are used so rarely that, every time they're used, their meaning needs to be explained. This thread is about that last category of words, which fail at their only purpose (namely, facilitating communication), and therefore may as well not exist.

To start off with, I think most collective terms for animals fall into this category, such as these. A number of these are pretty well-known; for example, I think most people understand "a gaggle of geese" or "a pride of lions", so those two don't deserve to be in a 'Useless words' thread. However, 'a shrewdness of apes' or 'an unkindness of ravens' seem completely pointless to me. I only ever hear these terms being used on trivia quizzes, where the question is simply "What is the collective term for a group of apes/ravens?". Even if somebody does want to refer to a group of these animals, they'll generally just use a generic term, like 'group' or (in the case of ravens) 'flock'. Or, if they do use the specific collective term, then they typically have to explain what it means - which is really the hallmark of a useless word. 

So, can you think of any other examples of words which fail at their only purpose?

My next example is 'biweekly' (and 'bimonthly', and so on).

Depending on context, 'biweekly' can mean one of two things:

1. Twice a week (i.e. 'bi-' + 'weekly');
   
2. Once every two weeks (i.e. 'biweek' +'-ly').
   

The trouble is, it's there are rarely any contextual clues to tell the listener which sense is meant - so, when using this word, it's usually necessary to specify which sense is intended. However, once you've done that, you might as well have just said 'every two weeks' or 'twice a week' in the first place !

A while back, I read an article proposing a system for dividing scandals into '-gates' and '-ghazis':

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ng/357053/

Essentially, anything that's genuinely scandalous is classified as a '-gate', and anything that's overblown and not really all that scandalous is classified as a '-ghazi'. Now, I think the distinction itself is a worthwhile one, and it might actually be helpful to have words to describe these two categories (indeed, the word 'nothingburger' has already been invented to describe 'scandals' that fall into the latter category ).

However, I think The Atlantic's proposal to use the '-gate' and '-ghazi' suffixes to make this distinction is completely useless. The problem is, these suffixes are used to name specific scandals - and they're usually applied right after the scandal first breaks. Quite often, it's not clear which category a particular scandal falls into until months later, when the dust has settled, and the scandal's nickname is already well-established. (The article actually acknowledges this problem, but it doesn't come up with any viable solutions for it. Instead, the implication is that we should just retroactively change the nickname if a '-gate' later turns out to be a '-ghazi', or vice versa. However, that's extremely difficult to do when the original nickname has already stuck, and long since become firmly embedded within the public conscience !!!)

If a distinction is to be made between the '-gate' and '-ghazi' suffixes, then it needs to be along lines that are clear from the outset. For example, if we used '-ghazi' for monosyllabic words beginning with B (e.g. 'Ballghazi', 'Bridgeghazi'), and used '-gate' elsewhere, then that would work. Or, if we used '-ghazi' for scandals related to the Middle East, and -gate for other scandals, then that would be workable. However, if the distinction is based on information that won't become clear until months (or even years) after the name is agreed, then it simply will not work.

Next up: a couple of things relating to our numerical prefixes.

First of all: English has two sets of numerical prefixes: one derived from Latin, and one derived from Greek. For example, for the number 4, we have the Latin-derived 'quadri-' (or 'quadru-') prefix, and the Greek-derived 'tetra-' prefix. Furthermore, there are no clear and consistent rules for when we should use one set, and when we should use the other - so, we just mix and match them, and use whichever one sounds better . Surely we only need one set?

The other thing is: the only ones that we ever hear about are those from 1 to 10; the ones for powers of 10 (e.g. 'kilo-' for 1000); and the ones for ½ ('semi-' from Latin, and 'hemi-' from Greek). We're all familiar with the 'tri-' prefix for 3 (which happens to be the same in both Latin and Greek) - but how many of us are familiar with the 'triaconta-' prefix for 30 ? It exists, but I've never used it, because a situation in which it would be useful to me has never come up!

I can only think of two situations where prefixes past 10 (that aren't powers of 10) are even marginally useful:

• You'll sometimes see them in maths, in names of polygons and polyhedra. For example, you'll sometimes hear about a 'dodecagon' (a 12-sided shape), or an 'icosahedron' (a solid with 20 faces). But even here, these names are only used because dodecagons and icosahedra have interesting properties that mathematicians like to study. Polygons with more than 12 sides are usually just referred to as '13-gons', '14-gons', and so on.
  
  
• Chemists sometimes use these prefixes for compounds in a homologous series. For example, a straight alkane with 20 carbon atoms is called 'eicosane', and one with 30 carbon atoms is called 'triacontane'. But even here, I'd argue that they might as well just be called '20-ane' and '30-ane' . After all, in order to understand the name 'triacontane', you need to know: a) what an alkane is, and b) what the numerical prefix for 30 is. However, in order to understand what '30-ane' means, you only need to know what an alkane is .

So, yeah... we have way too many of these numerical prefixes - and that's me saying it as a mathematician who's into that kind of numerical stuff .

(01-08-2021, 06:48 PM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ]My next example is 'biweekly' (and 'bimonthly', and so on).

Depending on context, 'biweekly' can mean one of two things:
 

1. Twice a week (i.e. 'bi-' + 'weekly');
   
2. Once every two weeks (i.e. 'biweek' +'-ly').
   

The trouble is, it's there are rarely any contextual clues to tell the listener which sense is meant - so, when using this word, it's usually necessary to specify which sense is intended. However, once you've done that, you might as well have just said 'every two weeks' or 'twice a week' in the first place !

This is why the word 'fortnight' is actually quite useful.

(02-15-2022, 08:54 PM)Pyrite Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-08-2021, 06:48 PM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ]My next example is 'biweekly' (and 'bimonthly', and so on).

Depending on context, 'biweekly' can mean one of two things:
 

1. Twice a week (i.e. 'bi-' + 'weekly');
   
2. Once every two weeks (i.e. 'biweek' +'-ly').
   

The trouble is, it's there are rarely any contextual clues to tell the listener which sense is meant - so, when using this word, it's usually necessary to specify which sense is intended. However, once you've done that, you might as well have just said 'every two weeks' or 'twice a week' in the first place !

This is why the word 'fortnight' is actually quite useful.

Good point. There's no reason to ever say 'biweekly' - because 'twice weekly' and 'fortnightly' both have the same number of syllables, and neither of them is ambiguous !!!

(Of course, there's also the problem of 'bimonthly'... we don't have a word that unambiguously means 'every two months', so I guess we just need to say that, and be content with having a fourth syllable )