Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Word Rant: Disremember


Who knew that disremember was even a word? But it is, and a verb at that. I like verbs. :) Not quite as much as I like adjectives and adverbs, but verbs are pretty high on my list of frequently used letter combinations. After all, where would an adverb be without its verb? Pretty lonely is my guess.

On March 28, 2008, Merriam Webster chose to promote a scoffed at and scorned word to the top of their word of the day list!

Scholars, admittedly can be a little harsh and set in their views, have gone as far as to suggest that we "never use that word in standard English". Never! That's a pretty strong demand. The poor little word has been called obsolete, even vulgar by at least one critic, and the grammarians backed him up.

How does one become a grammarian anyway? Is that an elite secret group of English teachers? Do you join, or get elected? And, who is actually voting? Just how much influence do they have over the daily use of our language? Not much, I presume, or our language wouldn't evolve and change like no other, as it clearly does.

My first thought was, "Disremember?! What kind of word is that? Who would use it, and why?" Then, I read on and learned a little of its history and seriously bad reputation. I began to wonder what it could have possibly done to earn that reputation. So I began to feel a little sorry for the abused verb.

Then the rebel in me jumped right up and said, "Forget is hugely overworked anyway. He's needed a vacation for decades, but he just trudges along because there aren't really many verbs to do his job in the event of an absence. You should give forget a break and use disremember for a while."

Now I'm stuck. I disremember where I was going with this. I hope I don't disremember where I put my car keys, because somewhere amongst all this grammatical rebellion, I have places to go. After my work is finished, I'm considering founding the Society for Underworked Conversational Koncepts. SUCK for those of you who are acronymically challenged. :)

9 comments:

Tabitha Blake said...

Wow! What a weird word. I mean how do you even use that word? Hmmm? We learn something new everyday. Great blog. Enjoyed it!

Martha Ramirez said...

Interesting.

Penelope said...

I disremember how to use it. I used to know...

Anonymous said...

it actually sounds wrong. like some sort of english language experiment gone awry. lol...
kris

Brenda said...

Hey, Troll. Good post. I guess I have to reremember what I've unremembered or disremembered, lol.

Penelope said...

If you've diremembered it Brenda, odds are it was fluff anyway. ;)

Penelope said...

Kris, I love English experiments...even when they go awry.

Sheri Fredricks said...

Penny - you have successfully increased my vocabulary for today. I think you should write to The Readers Digest and allow them to educate the rest of the world too! Let us know if you come across more of these interesting words.

Brenda said...

I like fluff and stuff, lol.