derivational-morphologyis-it-a-wordmeaningneologismsproductive-affixes
Is the word "versionize" a real word or is it a form of bastardization of English?
Additional Info:
I came across this word in a software feature tracker. The feature called for something in the software to have the ability to save versions of it. It went something like "…Versionize feature X…"
Interestingly, a lot of spell checkers seem to complain about the word too.
Rather than starting my inquiry by looking directly at disabilitated, I decided to do some research into the term disabilitation, on the theory that if the latter word exists, the former word is almost inevitable.
The old (and young) history of 'disabilitation'
A quick Google Books search turns up several matches for disabilitation in published works. The word is not used consistently in all instances, however—as you might expect, given that the few occurrences are spread across almost 400 years.
The earliest match is from the legal case of Finlason contra her Tennents (July 27, 1626), reprinted in The Decisions of the Lords of Council and Session, in Most Cases of Importance Debated and brought before Them; From July 1621 to July 1642 (1690):
Isobel Finlason being Infeft [enfeoffed] by umquhile [deceased] Gray her Husband, who was Infeft in certain Cottages in Coldinghame by the King, as vacant in his Hands, by the Disabilitation of John Stuart, Son to the umquhile forfaulted Earl of Bothwell, provided to the Priory of Coldinghame ; and by the Annexation of the said Priory to the Crown, pursues Removing against some Tennents, Possessors of the saids Cottages ; wherein the said John Stuart compearing for his Interest, Alledged, that the said Act of Disabilitation and Annexation of the said Priory, which was the ground of the Pursuers [plaintiff's] Husbands Infeftment, was rescinded and reduced by a posterior Act of Parliament, with all Infeftments depending thereon, and are declared null; and the said Act ordained the nullity to be received by by Exception or Reply, and therefore that Infeftment cannot be a Title, whereupon either to Pursue or Defend.
In this case summary, disabilitation is used (twice) as a legal term of art, with a meaning along the lines of "disabling of (or causing to forfeit) a right or possession." A more common term for such disabling in property law might be dispossession.
About 174 years later, Alexander Geddes, A Modest Apology for the Roman Catholics of Great Britain: Addressed to All Moderate Protestants (1800) uses the word twice in the final paragraph of the preface:
—And let it not be argued, that Disabilitation is not Persecution. To the unignoble mind, every civil Disability is a Disgrace; and a disgrace of such a nature, as that every positive persecution, short of banishment or death, might seem preferable. Nay, death itself, inflicted for mere matters of Religion, would be less intolerable: it would be accounted honourable Martyrdom. But civil Disabilitation is accompanied with infamy in this life, without posthumous renown.
Geddes's subject was the prospective repeal of "disabilitating Laws" that severely limited the civil rights of Catholic citizens of Great Britain. The difference from the 1626 Finlason case is very large because here the issue isn't loss of property but loss of various freedoms common to all other British citizens of similar situation (aside from religion).
In any event, the next Google Books match for disabilitation arises 208 years after Geddes's use of it. From a bibliography entry in Kristin Lefebvre, Racial Variation in Level of Amputation Among Individuals with Vascular Disease (January 25, 2008):
Esquinazi, A. (2004). Amputation rehabilitation and prosthetic restoration. From surgery to community reintegration. Disabilitation Rehabilitation, 26(14–15), 831–836.
Evidently, Disabilitation Rehabilitation is a periodical that in 2008 was in its 26th volume of publication (which is normally equivalent to 26 years of publication). IA Google search turns up citations to volumes 22, 27, and 29 of this periodical, but nothing more. On the sketchy evidence here, it would seem that disabilitation is being used to signify something like "state or process of being or becoming physically disabled."
The final Google Books match for the term is from Lucilla de Arcangelis & Hans Herrmann, "Activity-Dependent Neuronal Model on Complex Networks," in Scale-free Dynamics and Critical Phenomena in Cortical Activity (2012):
Conversely, the quiet periods can last seconds and have been attributed to a variety of mechanisms: The decrease in the available neurotransmitter (Stevens and Tsujimoto, 1995; Staley et al., 1998); the presence of an inhibitory factor leading to a disabilitation of the neurotransmitter release (Stevens and Tsujimoto, 1995; the inactivation, or remodulation of the response, of the glutamate receptors (Maeda et al., 1995).
Here disabilitation seems to have no more technical or specific meaning than "disabling." It's difficult to see what the authors have gained from their word choice beyond a specimen that is five letters (and two syllables) longer than it need be.
The recent emergence of 'disabilitated'
A Google Books search for disabilitated finds ten matches for the term—one from 1974, one from 1997, and the rest from 2001–2015. Even within this relative small window, usage of the term is by no means consistent. I'll review the main tendencies in usage here.
First, from Nancy Joyner, Aerial Hijacking As an International Crime (1974):
The Hague Convention embodies a mature legal evolution of international efforts to deter unlawful aircraft seizures. Even so, it is seriously disabilitated by the universally sanctioned municipal right of providing "safe-havens" for offenders under select circumstances. For this reason, it merits more detailed attention.
The meaning of disabilitated here is something like "undercut," "weakened," or "rendered ineffective." None of the other nine instances of the term in Google Books matches follow this would-be line of usage.
From the discussion of R.J. Davies & G.K. Knowles, "Antibiotic Treatment of Chronic Bronchitis," in Developments in Antibiotic Treatment of Respiratory Infections: Proceedings of the Round Table Conference on Developments in Antobiotic Treatment of Respiratory Infections in the Hospital and General Practice, held in the Kurhaus, Scheveningen, The Netherlands, June 15–16, 1980) (1981):
Dr. Gould: I, like Dr. Davies, have been very interested in this disease for some time. I do not think it is necessarily confined to its definition as “The English Disease', and his picture of the grossly disabilitated respiratory crumble, as we call them in the North, certainly could be replicated in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Here disabiltated seems to imply an advanced an extremely serious level physical debilitation; perhaps the most mysterious thing about the word choice is the question of why Dr. Gould didn't say "grossly debilitating respiratory crumble," since that seems to be the sense of the phrase he was after. Since these were spontaneous remarks, he may have got caught between disabled and debilitated and ended up with disabilitated as a portmanteau of the two.
From Jan Keene, Drug Misuse: Prevention, Harm Minimization and Treatment (1997):
[Griffith] Edwards [writing in 1986] concluded:
For people who are disabilitated simple strategies of social adjustment or psychotherapy (coping mechanisms) might be useful in reversing the 'dependence syndrome'. There is an important contrast here with the benefits of such general strategies for severe dependence, where similar approaches may be expected to lead to remission.
It's tempting to read disabilitated here as a portmanteau of disabled (physically and psychologically by substance abuse) and nonrehabilitated (because still in the grip of addiction)—that is, as a word that might more appropriately be spelled dishabilitated. On the other hand, it wouldn't be unreasonable to infer that Edwards is simply grasping for a fancier way to say "disabled" (whether from dependency or other causes).
From Craig Paterson, The Contribution of Natural Law Theory to Moral and Legal Debate Concerning Suicide, Assisted Suicide, and Voluntary Euthanasia (2001):
In the case of Karen Anne Quinlan, the court concluded that where a patient was in such a profoundly disabilitated condition, and where there was medical support to sustain that life, there could be a decision to withdraw life support. This line of argumentation found in Quinlan was defended in the cases of Superintendent of Belchertown State School v. Saikewicz, Brophy v. New England Sinai Hospital, and the Supreme Court case of Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Healh Department.
Disabilitated as used here seems to mean "severely and perhaps permanently incapacitated, to the point of being unable to survive without mechanical assistance."
From Jennifer Davis, Her Kind of Want (2002):
Wayne spent most of his time reading thick-skinned books by men whose names Elsie couldn't pronounce. He talked about enlightened consciousnesses and the plight of workers, the evils of capitalism and greed. Injustice, real or imagined, disabilitated him with passion. On their dates Elsie would carefully mention laid-off workers or companies crossing over borders or Wayne's father, who owned the car dealership and half the restaurants in town, and Wayne would work himself into a frenzy.
In this novel, disabilitated seems synonymous with "enflamed," "flooded," or "overran." There is no sense that he is actually disabled in any normal sense—indeed, the author reports that in the resulting passion, "He'd dance around the Mustang like a revival preacher, his curls icicle sharp with sweat, his index finger sharper, pointing at some imagined audience, while he sermonized on the horrors of corporations." The author could very well have replaced disabilitated with inspired without misleading her audience in the least.
From the opinion of Lord Mance in the House of Lords, "In re Deep Vein Thrombosis and Air Travel Litigantion" December 8, 2005, in Encyclopaedia of International Aviation Law (2013):
In Blansett v Continental Airlines Inc (2004) 379 F 3d 177 (US Court of Appeals), a passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight in June 2001 suffered DVT [deep vein thrombosis] which left him disabilitated. By that date many international carriers (it appears about half of them) provided passengers with information about DVT, but many, including Continental Airlines, did not: p. 182.
Here, much as in the 1981 instance, disabilitated seems to mean suddenly and gravely disabled.
The remaining four matches for disabilitated that the Google Books search returns are from 2009, 2012, and 20015 (two different books). In these matches, the meaning is much more consistent— and it more or less corresponds to disabled/debilitated/incapacitated (again, as in Dr. Gould's remarks from 1981), though it may suggest that an unusually severe disability is involved.
From Claudia Osborn, Over My Head: A Doctor's Own Story of Head Injury from the Inside Looking Out (2009):
In the crash that ended the skid, his brother was killed and Richard was severely injured. He spent years in a hospital, the first six months in a coma. Later, at a rehabilitation center, he was outfitted with mechanical aids and taught how to walk and speak again.
"When I was disabilitated," he told us, "I was going to Northwestern University."
From Stephen Sutton, Full Circle: Looking at the World Through My Eyes (2012):
When I was nine or ten my father took my brother and I camping. We stayed in a cow field in Dovedale, Derbyshire on a farm. It was fun but I suffered from asthma so had the occasional attacks this disabilitated me a little and I found the walks difficult at times. Despite this I enjoyed visiting the caves and other sites, my brother was always excited to get out and explore and put his foot in cow pat.
From Anca Sarb, Stelian Brad & Ovidiu Stan, "The Innovation in Design Management of Buildings," in Proceedings of IAC-MEM 2015: International Academic Conference on Management, Economics and Marketing in Budapest, July 10–11, 2015 (2015):
In a study conducted by the World Health Organization and the World Bank should that 15% of the globe's population has a disability, including 5% children. They have also concluded that the poorer countries have the highest percent of persons with disabilities. Due to technical advancements and innovation in various fiel[d]s, the desire to include disabilitated persons in society emerged. Starting with the 1990s governments all over the world started elaborating laws to fully include incapacitated persons into society.
In this example, disabilitated seems to have grown directly out of the noun disability, as if the authors were unaware of disabled as an alternative.
From David Peckham, 101 Thoughts from the Word (2015):
In Syria, leprosy would not have caused Naaman to be shunned, only disabilitated. Leprosy did not keep him from achieving a great status. But he knew he was dying.
Conclusions
The word disabilitation has existed for centuries—first as a legal term referring to dispossession of property and (subsequently) to loss of civil rights, and later (long after the legal meanings seem to have vanished from the scene) in a medical context in connection with physical disabilities and/or the disabling of physiological processes. It remains rare in both contexts.
As for disabilitated, it's a word, too—indeed a more popular word (to judge from Google Books match frequency) than the much older disabilitation. The most problematic thing about disabilitated from a reader's perspective is that it seems never to have been comprehensively and coherently defined. As a result figuring out which of the many of the meanings it seems to have carried in the past is the one an author intends in any concrete instance of use.
The most frequently intended sense seems to be a compound of equal parts "disabled," "debilitated," and "incapacitated." But other meanings that would suit particular contexts where the word has occurred include "vitiated," "unable to overcome addiction," "inspired or filled," and, simply, "disabled." Perhaps the main point to take away from this discussion is that when you are flirting with the idea of using a word that is unfamiliar to the vast majority of English speakers and doesn't appear in most dictionaries of English words, it might be wiser to replace that term with more-familiar words that are likely to convey your meaning more reliably.
While I did not find the word outstaff in any dictionaries, a web search does turn up several companies named Outstaff or OutStaff, perhaps created as a portmanteau of outsource and staff.
In the U.S., the practice of long-term but indirect employment through a third party would be called contracting or hiring a contract worker. Even though direct employees may also have employment contracts, only third party employees are called contractors (contractor has many other meanings, however, so context is important); the contract is between the hiring company and the staffing company, contracting firm or employment agency which provides the workers.
A contractor may be distinguished from a temp, a temporary worker who might be brought in on a short-term basis for low-skill duties (e.g. basic clerical or reception work) while a regular worker is out, or who might be hired for a seasonal period. Contractors may also be distinguished from consultants, who are specialists temporarily hired for their specific knowledge in an area, as opposed to someone filling in for what would be an ordinary internal hire. The lines between a temp, a contractor, and a consultant can become quite blurry, depending on the specific employment situation, and relate as much to social status as to employment status.
When a job formerly handled by internal staff (whether employees or contractors) is assigned to an outside firm, the process is known as outsourcing or contracting out, and may be handled by an outsourcer or outsourcing company.
Best Answer
Whateverize is always a word
Yes, of course versionize is a “real word” — and no disparaging remarks about its parentage should be made in polite company.
This is because ‑ize is a productive suffix in English that’s used to produce a new verb from various nouns and adjectives. That means that any word derived by combining an existing one of those using ‑ize is AUTOMATICALLY also a “real word”.
This remains true under all conditions:
Indeed, the OED specifically states that such nonce-words are “WITHOUT LIMIT”, and that means there really and truly are infinitely many of them.
It cannot be made plainer than that, for something that is without limit cannot be limited — it is illimitable. Such ‑ize derivations know no bound, for -ize is an infinite font of new words, a spring that can never run dry.
In fact, given an ‑ize word, no matter whether of ancient provenance like baptize or a nonce-word like Joe-Millerize, a whole slew of other “real words” automatically derive from that. The OED specifically notes that this occurs when it says under its entry for ‑ize:
Hence:
baptize, baptized, baptizing, baptizer, †baptization
That ‘†’ up there prefixing the last word on the previous line is how the OED erects a memorial cross over the grave of a word that has shuffled off this mortal coil: one that’s now considered obsolete. Baptization is an example of a “real word” that failed to remained current, probably due to competition with baptism. It is unlikely that many tears were shed at its funeral.
versionize, versionized, versionizing, versionizer, versionization
Londonize, Londonized, Londonizing, Londonizer, Londonization
Joe-Millerize, Joe-Millerized, Joe-Millerizing, Joe-Millerizer, Joe-Millerization
When duly applied to existing words of the applicable type, productive affixes ALWAYS produce “real words”, for thus is the nature of productivity: it is inherently productive.
Aesthetics, however, is something else altogether.
It is always still a word — even if you don’t like it!
In other words, it behaves exactly like how anything derived from existing words using productive affixes like ‑ly, ‑able, un-, and pre- is also automatically a “real word”.
Unlike little-known Greek affixes like achroö- or -dactyl but more like pseudo- or ‑cracy, the ‑ize suffix has been sufficiently naturalized in English that any native speaker can be expected to know exactly what is meant by any new word derived using it, not just specialists and Hellenists alone.
Mind you, just because anyone anywhere will automatically understand it does not necessarily mean that they will LIKE it.
Indeed, words created in this way are often heavily stigmatized, especially if they are then subsequently nominalized using the ‑ation suffix. It might well be better to start over instead of going from a noun to a verb and back to a noun again.
One criticism of such words is that they tend to occur in documents produced by organizations known for impenetrably turgid prose. But complaining of their turgidity or boisterousness is a different criticism altogether. And it’s hardly a new complaint either: see the Nashe citation from 1591 below, and you will realize that people have been gnashing their teeth as this tired old chestnut for more than four centuries.
These sorts of derived words are also criticized as being unnecessary when a simpler and perfectly suitable word or short phrase already exists, such as we see with incentivize being tut-tutted as a clumsy alternative for motivate or give an incentive.
Government documents and business jargon are both notorious for this sort of obfuscatory cant. That’s why so many of the entries on Forbes’ famous list of The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon are words created through these same processes. Refactor looks fancier and more self-important than rewrite or redesign, just as reify looks way more high-falutin’ than create, realize, or thingify ever can.
Or so the theory goes. Whatever the reason, we too often get a muddled mess out of such organizations instead of getting plain English. So complaints like those are not wholly ungrounded.
But that still has nothing to do with whether it is a “real word”. Of course it is. It HAS to be, because that’s how PRODUCTIVE affixes work: they PRODUCE words.
Quoth the OED
Here is the OED’s unstigmaticized description of the ‑ize suffix:
Hey, if you think versionize is bad. . . .
Anyone who lifts a supercilious eyebrow at the notion of versionize as a “real word” should pay especial attention to the rich — some might say outlandish — examples provided by the OED in its citations for ‑ize, because quite frankly I think you will astonished at some of these, which I have placed in bold to help guie your eye to their awesomeness:
Yup, that’s right; you really did just read about “nakedized children”.
As you can see, we’ve gone minting new words using this suffix for centuries and centuries, and little ol’ versionize is utterly unexceptionable compared with many you’ve just read above.
In fact, it’s downright boring, so much so that you might even say, as the citations suggest, that it has been insignificantized by all those others.
(And yes, I can hear you all groaning out there, but it’s right there in print ever since way back in 1833, for goodness’ sake!)
Nifty, eh? That’s productivity for you! Surely ‑ize is as fecund a suffix as you can imagine, maybe even more fecund than you WANT to imagine. :)
Summary
So yeah, versionize is a “real word” — and in fact, it HAS to be.
But you certainly don’t have to like it if you don’t want to. Just don’t go expecting everybody else in the whole world to share your own peculiar likes and dislikes.
Indeed, it’s probably better if you expect that they won’t share them. By setting your expectations appropriately, you will make life a great deal easier on yourself — and on others.
Postscript
Although some folks may find certain combinations and applications ugly and perhaps even awkward, one should NEVER accuse someone of making bastards: it is not only impolite, it might be downright dangerous.
In other words, if linguists don’t talk about “bastardizing” language, perhaps no one else should be doing that either.
For that matter, you might also want to tread lightly when it comes to “real words”.