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>A word may be in common use in the future, or it may have been in common use in the past, but if it isn't currently in common use, using it decreases your unde

by Nadya 11y ago

>A word may be in common use in the future, or it may have been in common use in the past, but if it isn't currently in common use, using it decreases your understandability. How do you propose a word become common to use without early adopters? If people did as you suggested and never used a word until it was in common use, nobody would use the word and it would never enter common use. "Common use" first and foremost denotes that people use the word. It's a requirement. A word has to be used and be picked up upon by others to either replace a synonym or take on a new meaning. There has to be early adopters of the word that are using it before it is in common usage.

learc83 11y ago
> There has to be early adopters of the word that are using it before it is in common usage. You're right, but using a word that may be popular in the future decreases the effectiveness of your writing today. Are you writing to effectively communicate, or are you writing to spread the adoption of new words for future generations? I'm also not arguing that no one should ever use uncommon words. I'm arguing that there is a cost to using uncommon words, so the benefit should be worth the cost. Usually a word becomes common because there is a need for it, because it fills a niche better than available words--either because it is easier to say or write, or because it is more descriptive than available terms. If that is the case, the word will spread incredibly fast. There are many examples, the most recent I can think of is "selfie". It became common over the course of a few months. I wouldn't advise that an individual writer should have started using the word selfie 2 years ago simply because it was going to become common, anymore than I would've advised Charles Dickens to describe writing love letters as sexting. USian has no benefit over American other than political, and people have been pushing for it's adoption for decades. It hasn't happened, it's not likely to happen, and the only result of using it, is that your writing is less effective.

by Nadya 11y ago

learc83 11y ago

> There has to be early adopters of the word that are using it before it is in common usage. You're right, but using a word that may be popular in the future decreases the effectiveness of your writing today. Are you writing to effectively communicate, or are you writing to spread the adoption of new words for future generations? I'm also not arguing that no one should ever use uncommon words. I'm arguing that there is a cost to using uncommon words, so the benefit should be worth the cost. Usually a word becomes common because there is a need for it, because it fills a niche better than available words--either because it is easier to say or write, or because it is more descriptive than available terms. If that is the case, the word will spread incredibly fast. There are many examples, the most recent I can think of is "selfie". It became common over the course of a few months. I wouldn't advise that an individual writer should have started using the word selfie 2 years ago simply because it was going to become common, anymore than I would've advised Charles Dickens to describe writing love letters as sexting. USian has no benefit over American other than political, and people have been pushing for it's adoption for decades. It hasn't happened, it's not likely to happen, and the only result of using it, is that your writing is less effective.