Sunday, May 25, 2008

Note to NBA Broadcasters

AGGRESSIVENESS IS NOT A WORD. The proper word for "displaying or characterized by being aggressive" is "aggression". Please make a note of it. The continual use of this non-word in describing players or what players should be doing is robbing me of any enjoyment of the NBA finals.

Thank you for your attention.

4 comments:

Sean said...

While it may not show up in the dictionary, isn't the very fact that they're using the word proof that it is in fact a word. And isn't this how language is created, but the use of a previously undefined word to describe something. Much like googled in reference to search was not a word until a couple of years ago. There was no need to add it officially to the language because we had the term search or web/internet search already. But googled became a word because of repeated usage. I suspect this is a similar case - though I doubt it'll make its way into the OED.

CRCHAIR said...

Good point Sean.

Nomad said...

Sean, Homey ain't cromulent, yo.

Nomad said...

My point being (the above was much funnier in my head) that anything is a word in the sense that "someone said it." But in the sense that it is part of the language, a word is only a word when a culture or subculture adopts it, write large. "Ain't" is not a word generally accepted as "good English" even by those who use it in their own subculture. I would argue "aggressiveness" is the same thing. There is no need to invent a new word, when there is an existing word that covers EXACTLY the same territory.

Now, I am off to drive to lunch in my car, automobile, motorcar, etc.