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New words

New words

New words

(OP)
This forum is often witness to violent and bloody battles over the abuse and corruption of the English language.

We often argue about what is the legitimate evolution of a living language and what is detrimental and unacceptable.

One area of discussion is the introduction of new words.

I am myself oldfashioned: I much prefer to say "do an internet search" rather than "go google" when some posters ask for information they could easily obtain by themselves.

But some words meet with my utmost approval and one such is "Confusopoly" coined with bitig accuracy by Scott Adams (The Dilbert Principle).

New words are often first used self-conciously and then with increasing assurance as they enter into more general use and even get a dictionary listing. They may finally be considered to have "come of age" when they are used devoid of explanation or authors credit by educationalists and in official documents; i.e. their use assumes they are in the general currency of a language.

Scott ADams focussed on the telecomunications industry but I have found it used in association with telephones, internet, electricity and gas providers and the like. In fact it seems to be applicable to virtually any large consumer market.

Just think about it: deregulating state monopolies was supposed to provide choice and competition. Competition was supposed to have brought down prices. It didn't and for exactly the reasons embodied in the word "confusopoly".

In this link you will see exactly what I mean:
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=103471&catId=100501&tid=100008&p=3

Quote:

In the shallow, contesting market, consumers confront market forces that conspire to increase complexity, giving rise to what some analysts have dubbed the ‘confusopoly'.

Here are a few other links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2000/11/2/74555/4233
http://www.ucan.org/members/ucanmembersonly/watchdog/Dec99/NL4Web1-00/newslet1-07-00.html#10%20Shocking%20Predictions
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:nd76ne7O_EwJ:accc.gov.au/content/item.phtml%3FitemId%3D590139%26nodeId%3Dfile42f2fd1e44f15%26fn%3DSession%25203%2520-%2520Joshua%2520Gans.pdf+confusopoly&hl=en
http://www.woodsideinstitute.org/articles/ODDcomment.pdf
http://www.davidglover.org/2005/06/21/

I'd be interested hear what others have to say about "confusopolies" and to discover any other new words that members feel are as well conceived and with such global usage.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: New words

Great word! Telephond (fixed and mobile) and ADSL connection are confusopolies in France. Many companies on the market, many of them are cross-linked in obscure alliances, spend fortunes on commercials aimed at creating confusion. Advertisements usually consist of a gorgeous lady performing an obscure act with a phone (or whatever the commercial is about), an insanely low price (like, 0 Euro) that fills 3/4 of the page, then at least 10 lines of smallest possible prints with obscure, illogical and unfair conditions. To succesfully add up what you're supposed to pay every month, you have to have an... engineering degree for example.

Postulate: the engineer is probably the best adapted species for a confusopoly.

RE: New words

Great word!

Sorry to hear about deregulation not working where you are.  It has worked great where I am.  The phone bill is $50(USD) a month with unlimited everything plus all the bells and whistles.  Back when we had a monopoly running it the bill was always over $100(USD) and no bells and whistles.  

It is nice to be able to talk to someone a few hundred miles away without looking at my watch like in the old days.

Of course the smaller players had to sue the big players a few times to get some real competition going.

Barry1961

RE: New words

Not a new word but nevertheless heard today for the first time. The spelling is a guess: Cloggage, In regard to the progressive clogging of waste water pipe.

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