The seasons were wrestling again today and the decisive winner -- at least, in Kitchener, Ontario -- was Spring...blue skies with a high of 10 degrees C!
I decided to celebrate by walking over to the mall during lunch. It was at the mall where I saw a billboard which ignited the fire to write about a pet peeve I've had for some time.
The line on the billboard read "Are you a shoe-aholic?" Ignoring the blatant consumerism and materialism contained within, let's examine for a moment the language used here.
First of all, someone who is an alcoholic is addicted to what? Alcohol. What, then, is a workaholic addicted to? Workahol? Rageaholic --> rageahol? Workahol and rageahol are not, to my knowledge, actual words in the english language.
The word 'alcoholic' was created by adding the suffix 'ic' to 'alcohol,' NOT the suffix of 'oholic' to 'alc.' Thus, while it may sound somewhat crude and irregular, surely we should have "workic's," "rageic's" and "shoeic's" instead. I realize this is just one case of MANY in which the english language doesn't follow its own rules, but for goodness' sake people, you can't suggest people are addicted to things that don't even exist.
Alternatively, we could just have alcoholaholics, if that's going to be the norm...
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7 comments:
maybe these people are just arseholics...
I hate arseholics.
You are the first american so far i found use celsius instead of fahrenheit.
Since the suffix "-aholic" is permanently entrenched in our language, I vote we start using "alcoholoholic" and stick to the formula. It rolls off the tongue quite nicely.
Rich: clever.
Martin: that's because I'm Canadian -- we're all metric baby!
Kara: Hypothetically then what would you call someone who is addicted to alcoholics? Alcoholoholicoholics? :D
guys, that is only language, a tool to communicate. why need to chase to root how and why the word is formed? stupid words exist in every language. if most of people think it is stupid, it will not survive, but sometime it is not true, people love stupidity like holic stuff.
Maybe you just think too much.
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