The noun disconnect
August 12th, 2008
The English language changes. It’s a fact of life. Much as grammarians and pedants would love for it to stay the same, it changes. I understand that change is inevitable—I don’t have to like the change, though.
I have finally embraced the verb impact, and I still cringe when someone says something was [insert adverb] unique (e.g., really unique, very unique, so unique). I realize, of course, I’m fighting an uphill battle. I’m not quite as extreme as some are, though. I don’t impose arbitrary grammar “rules” (no split infinitives, no ending a sentence with a preposition).
Shifts in usage irk me if I see no logical reason for them. I’m okay with calling stewards and stewardesses flight attendants, as it apparently gives their job more dignity, and it also saves me the trouble of distinguishing genders. I’m okay with people using the term sick to substitute for what used to be phat, bad, tubular, or groovy. Every generation has to have its “cool” words.
Why did, after Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas, harassment suddenly shift from being harassment to harassment? Why in 2002 did people start using the word disconnect as a noun? I swear before 2002 I had never heard a single soul say “There was a disconnect between….” All of a sudden, the past six years, I can’t go a month without hearing someone say “There was a disconnect” or seeing the phrase written in a blog or news article. I get a mental shiver every time I hear it.
I never thought I’d be a “Good old days…” person, but I do miss the days of disconnect as a verb, which I rarely hear now. Could you please disconnect the phone?
August 13th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Working in a corporate environment, I have to cringe my way through a lot of terrible new buzzwords. My current least favorite is the dreadfully generic “impactful.”
I wonder if the use of disconnect has something to do with the rise of technology? Because it is sort of like technological metaphor for what we would have called a misunderstanding Back In The Gold Old Days(tm).
August 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Lost the battle over here with concede (an intransitive verb when I was a lad). Football (soccer) commentators fell in love with the word used as a transitive verb. Concede a goal, a corner, a free kick etc. and worst of all, news readers love to ‘concede defeat’ ! Arghhhhh… that still grates as an abuse of the English language. In my mind I can only translate that as ‘to agree to give up defeat’. Does that mean I’ve agreed to win? My former Enlgish master (if he is indeed deceased) will be spinning in his grave.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@themcp
Your dread of impactful is understandable, as impactful is not a real word. Unfortunately, my disdain for the noun form of disconnect is completely unreasonable, as something can apparently be “a disconnect” and be completely grammatically correct.
@zimmer
Don’t know if it’s just an American thing, but Random House’s dictionary says it’s okay for concede to be used transitively as well. Grammar does sometimes differ from country to country.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Hey, does anyone else remember when the word “text” was a noun? Nowadays, my son suggests we communicate through “texting”.
Other words I feel need to be removed from the English language include:
“healthful”
“flavourful”
and go back to saying “healthy” and “tasty”?
August 13th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
arbitrary word dislikes are one of the great joys of being a writer.
how about this one: acclimate or acclimatize? use the former, hate the latter. REDUNDANT. yet both are good usage. it’s just that extra syllable i can’t stand for some reason.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@ubuntucat.. yes, well it is a long time since the swinging ’60′s and even my 70′s edition of the concise Oxford places it as transitive (but with a poor definition). But my old English master, W G Bebbington MA (Oxon) would get in a right two and eight whenever he heard or read particularly that ‘such and such conceded defeat’. He would clutch his chest and have a mock seizure, then produce a toy cap pistol from his cupboard and proceed to shoot the offending culprit/text. He would then proclaim the verb to be intransitive and that even if it WAS transitive conceding defeat was a totally incorrect use of the verb.
Nothing quite like a British eccentric, eh?
April 7th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
AMEN.. wth? upon hearing this usage for the umpteenth time, i had to google “disconnect as noun” and found this post. glad i’m not alone on this one. is it so hard to say disconnection? perhaps lacuna? discontinuity? disparity? irregardless of all this, i guess “anything” go’s these day’s. hahahaha
June 9th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
The prex. of the uni. where I teach told us we need to attend a meeting in which to discuss “the way that the University operationalizes its mission” AARGH!
August 2nd, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Chris, that’s exactly how I ended up here as well. I must hear “disconnect” used this way everyday, and it drives me up a wall. The odd thing is that I can’t remember people using “disconnection,” “disparity,” etc. to this extent before “disconnect” came along.