Saturday, June 11, 2011

Verisimilitude

As I have said recently, more-sophisticated words can easily be misused and lower the effectiveness of your sentences, but that depends on the context of its usage more than the word itself.

Except for 'verisimilitude'. That word can easily be wiped out of existence.

'Verisimilitude' basically means 'truthiness'. But I can think of no instance where I would prefer to say 'verisimilitude' instead of 'truthiness'.

Appropriately enough, the word nearly has been wiped out of existence. As a word lover, that ought to make me upset, but it really doesn't. Its time has simply come.

Language is as alive as the people who speak it. Words will come in and out of fashion. They will change in connotation and denotation (not to mention spelling). If a word is worthy, it will persist. If the populace decides a word is not worth maintaining, then let it go.

No comments:

Post a Comment