Is “illustrationist” an existing word? Or should I use ‘illustrator’ instead? Answer It is a legitimately formed term, combining “illustration” and the suffix “-ist”. But, since the term “illustrator” exists and is commonly used, that is preferred. You might still want to use “illustrationist” in some cases since it tends to imply a more exceptional … Read more
Deaccelerate means the same as decelerate, though it seems to be a much less common alternative. I did not know this until recently, as I had used this alternative all my life. It just seemed logical to me, deaccelerate is accelerate with a negative prefix. I came to believe that deaccelerate was the “father” of … Read more
I am trying to describe someone’s reactions in a situation. At first I used the word overreact, but then I realized it is not only the person’s overreaction but also other kinds of inappropriate or unexpected reactions. Then I came across “misreact” which seems to be the right word, except that I am not sure … Read more
After checking a few dictionaries like https://www.dictionary.com, I noticed that the only form of this word they recognize is the adjective form: multifunctional. The only noun form listed is "functionality." However in most spellchecking applications, no error is thrown when I type "multifunctionality." I tried investigating further and found that "multifunctionality" can have industry specific … Read more
As per the question, I might have spelt cleanly wrong… Answer ‘Cleanly’ meaning (of a person) ‘habitually clean and careful to avoid dirt’ is archaic, and should be used with care, e.g. in poetry or period dialogue. ADJECTIVE archaic Habitually clean and careful to avoid dirt. ‘some plain but cleanly country maid’ Cleanly (Oxford Dictionaries) … Read more
Question Is et viola [sic](spelled like this intentionally) just a misspelling of et voila or is it an actual word, or perhaps an inside joke (not just a one-off thing)? Background Based on this answer by Bread, there has been some discussion about the idiom et viola [sic]. The discussion stems from this phrase on … Read more
I have always thought that startlement is a word in the lexicon. But one day when I was writing in a google doc, I saw it underlined like a typo. I googled it to see if it was indeed a word, or a construct of my imagination, and I found very contradicting answers. It wasn’t … Read more
Who’s is valid, as in Who’s going? (Who is going?) So surely whom’s should be valid, as in Whom’s he invited? (Whom has he invited?) Answer There is no official list of valid contractions for the English language. We might be able to logically deduce that whom’s is “invalid” if there were some general syntactic … Read more
Is contentual a proper word? I saw in Wiktionary that it is considered to be a proper word: contentual adjective Relating to content (as apposed to context) However, I have not seen it cited in any major dictionaries (Websters, Oxford, Collins etc.). If the reason it is not in these dictionaries is because the word … Read more
Is “modificate” a correct English word? From source: http://www.definitions.net/definition/modificate (Webster Dictionary) Modificate (verb) to qualify Origin: [See Modify.] But if I look in the Cambridge dictionary, it returns nothing: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/spellcheck/english/?q=Modificate Answer It appears to be an obsolete usage of Latin origin (modificare) “to limit, measure off, restrain," from modus "measure, manner", probably used mainly in … Read more
