The IZE Have It

Languages have ways of churning out new words as needed. Many nouns that we borrowed from French over the centuries can be recognized by their common -age ending. In the 50's, a whole sub-dialect of English, called ad-speak or Madison-Avenue-ese was recognized and mocked. One practice that got a lot of attention was the creation of verbs and nouns by appending an -ize or -ization, no matter how bizarre or cacophonous the result.

Herewith, a short list of some of the more regrettable words:

• Operationalize, which was used in the sense of bringing an idea or command into effect;
• Vietnamization, the technical term for Richard Nixon's secret plan to get people to stop protesting the Vietnam war.
• Voucherize, which was used during a debate on school vouchers, and referred to students who had received a voucher.

Back to the wordplay section.