JW brother stopped by to awfulize about the bombing in London

by homesteader 37 Replies latest jw friends

  • Frog
    Frog
    Surely 'panties' are just for women? There has to be a better name for man pants?

    -Bananahammock -Meathangers ...just a couple of suggestions;)

  • dorayakii
    dorayakii
    ...I've just worked out why "awfulise" sounds perfectly normal to me. It's because it's just the same as "trivialise" or "idealise" isn't it? They're both adjective+ise being used as a verb right? So someone stopping by to awfulise could just as easily have stopped by to trivialise or to idealise.

    Come on people, let's harmonise and energise, not demonise, rather advertise and prioritise awfulise

    hehe, i agree its a perfectly valid word and some people seem to like it... but again i must say that it doesn’t sound right to me.
    Firstly, Most (but admittedly not all) "-ise" words are through Greek or Latinate languages like French, which lend themselves more to the suffix. So “ideal” is from Latin "idealis"... “trivial” is from Latin "trivialis" and both can readily take “-ise”... then you have words like “advertise” from French “avertir”, one form of which is “avertissement” meaning “warning” (perhaps originally in the form of a poster).
    However, "awful" is from Anglo-Saxon "agheful"…. Normally Anglo-Saxon root words are shorter and more succinct than words from Greek and Latin and they don't readily admit a myriad of suffices ("awful" already has the suffix "-ful")
    Secondly, the suffix “-ise” usually means “to make something x” or “to believe that something is x”… therefore "civilise" - "to make something civil", "realise" - "to make something real", etc...
    If you really want to be weird and go back to the original meaning of the word “awful” (wonderful, marvellous) then it’s quite possible that homesteader’s JW brother could be “making [the tragedy] a cause of wonder or marvel”.
    However, the changed meaning of the word causes a bit of confusion. the word no longer means “wonderful” to most English-speaking ears. (Do your ears speak English??) alt...... If “awful” is used in its present meaning, “terrible”, then homesteader’s JW brother isn't “making [the tragedy] awful”, what happened on Thursday was already awful (terrible). The word no has no well-known link to its modern meaning, therefore (for most speakers) it takes longer for the brain to parse… and is perceived as nonsensical.
    I’m quite a liberal linguist and am in favour of language advancement, so i feel we should adhere to certain rules when coining new words but i also feel that we shouldn’t go backwards in time and re-adopt this word’s defunct ancient meaning, in a new form.

  • Carmel
    Carmel

    Firstlyizing and secondlyizing your comments was unnecessary dora!

    carmelized

  • BluesBrother
    BluesBrother

    Returning to the original post [although I learned a bit about grammar}

    The bombing in London was awful and of course it has received blanket coverage in the media this weekend.What I am about to say takes nothing away from our feeling of outrage and sympathy for those personally affected.

    We would not want this situation to be awfulized [I love new words] Katiekitten put things into perspective so well. Three times as many people died in the Madrid bombs . London has been bombed in living memory by the Nazis, the IRA, and now apparently by Al Quada. It is still there and will still stand long after the Watchtower has been forgotten.

    The nation will mourn, but carry on. The last thing we want is for the media to hype it up as if it were a world changing event, becaues it isnt

  • stevenyc
    stevenyc

    One of the many things that pissed me off was the US media coverage. The sensationalism.

    When a reporter in London spoke about how Londers had had experience with bombs because of the IRA, their interview was immediatly cut off. This happened on all networks. The US was the largest funder for that terrorist organization.

    steve

  • katiekitten
    katiekitten

    ROFL - bananahangers! OH YES!!!!

  • tdogg
    tdogg

    Awfulize rhymes with proselytize, well not perfectly, but thats the word my mind jumped to first..hmmm...

  • diamondblue1974
    diamondblue1974

    Typical dubs attaching themselves onto anything slightly negative in order to get a response..I am glad they havent knocked on my door with that drivel...I dont think my response would be repeatable on this board and thats saying something.

    DB74

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