Is learnings a real word

Is learnings a real word?

As the website The Grammarist, says: “Learnings is a pluralisation of an erroneous form of learning as a singular noun. Colloquially, especially in the medical field, learnings means specific items that were newly discovered or learned.”

How would you spell the plural nouns?

Plural Noun Rules The correct spelling of plurals usually depends on what letter the singular noun ends in. 1 To make regular nouns plural, add ‑s to the end. 2 If the singular noun ends in ‑s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, or -z, add ‑es to the end to make it plural.

How do you spell learning?

How Do You Spell LEARNINGS? Correct spelling for the English word “Learnings” is [lˈɜːnɪŋz], [lˈɜːnɪŋz], [l_ˈɜː_n_ɪ_ŋ_z] (IPA phonetic alphabet).

How do we use learning?

Learnings

1. AP Psychology, in the few weeks that I have had it, has already changed the way I think about my learning and excited me for the rest of the year to come. [
2. For a first attempt, the Moon Tunes of Sept 18 went well, though it was unmistakably a learning experience for the planners. [

Can we say learnings?

4 Answers. Yes, the plural of learning is learnings. It appears in established expressions like new learnings (a medical term).

What is another word for learnings?

What is another word for learnings?

educations	knowledges
eruditions	expertises
intellects	wisdoms
abilities	accomplishments
acquirements	acumens

Is learnings an English word?

“Learnings” is the plural of “learning” in the sense of “(specific) things or lessons that have been learned”. It is often considered nonstandard English, even though it is rather widely used.

What is another word for findings?

What is another word for findings?

result	verdict
pronouncement	decree
settlement	finding
order	arbitrament
sentence	results

What is the meaning of findings?

The principal outcomes of a research project; what the project suggested, revealed or indicated. This usually refers to the totality of outcomes, rather than the conclusions or recommendations drawn from them.

What is the conclusion of the writer?

Your conclusion is your chance to have the last word on the subject. The conclusion allows you to have the final say on the issues you have raised in your paper, to synthesize your thoughts, to demonstrate the importance of your ideas, and to propel your reader to a new view of the subject.

Reader Paul wonders about

the legitimacy of the word ‘learnings’? I find myself wanting to use this word on occasion however feel it is not an actual word. wondering about “the legitimacy of the word ‘learnings’.”

My instinctive response was, “Of course it’s not a word! Who, other than Borat, would abuse the language in such a way?

However, before shooting back that answer, I took the precaution of searching the web. I was astounded to discover that there really are writers out there–presumably native English speakers–pretending that “learnings” is a word!

Learning as a singular noun is a perfectly idiomatic and useful word:

learning: The action of the vb. LEARN.  a. The action of receiving instruction or acquiring knowledge; spec. in Psychol., a process which leads to the modification of behaviour or the acquisition of new abilities or responses, and which is additional to natural development by growth or maturation… –OED

Renaissance thinkers called the revival of interest in Greek studies the “New Learning.”

A scholar possesses learning. Children may have learning difficulties.

I suspect that the pluralized form originated in the corporate world, but, because “learnings” sounds so supremely pompous, has been enthusiastically embraced by those other lovers of obfuscation: Educators and Social Scientists.

Preceded by the word new, it is especially popular in headlines and in committee names:

New players, new learnings –headline at Businessworld

Winds change direction with new learnings –New Zealand Department of Corrections site

Committee 10. SC5 Procedures and Learnings –ISO Standards site

Old Wisdom: New Learnings –lesson title at University of Illinois Extension site. The lesson is about proverbs like “A stitch in time saves nine.”

I couldn’t help wondering if students being taught this lesson would be encouraged to translate the proverbs into learnings-speak: The unique movement of a threaded pointed implement through fabric obviates the future necessity of numerous movements of the aforementioned pointed implement with the resultant outcome that time is retained for other pragmatic exertions of energy.

New Learnings Begin –blog about social media and large companies

New learnings from old understandings:conducting qualitative research with Māori. –title of academic paper listed at Social Care Online

There’s even a medical definition at The Free Dictionary:

new learnings: n.pl new suggestions and perceptions given to the unconscious during hypnotherapy to replace old restrictive messages.

Those who have the insensitivity to use it seem to prefer “learnings” to the more familiar and readily understandable word lessons. It’s a usage that probably has Orwell spinning in his grave.

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Asked by: Rowena Ebert

Score: 4.8/5
(30 votes)

Yes, the plural of learning is learnings. It appears in established expressions like new learnings (a medical term).

Why are people saying learnings?

It could mean “to absorb knowledge” as it does today, making it the reciprocal action (sometimes called the “converse”) of to teach. But it also meant “to impart knowledge,” making it a synonym of teach too.

What is a better word than learnings?

Is learnings in the dictionary?

1. The act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill. 2. Knowledge or skill gained through schooling or study.

What is the difference between learnings and lessons?

19 related questions found

• #1

Hello everyone,

Is «learnings» an actual gramatically correct word? I’ve read it often and I know it is used, but then I found this somewhere online:

http://blog.jeffreymcmanus.com/157/learnings-is-a-stupid-stupid-word/
Attention, Masters of Business Administration of Corporate America:
Quit using the word ‘learnings’. It makes you sound really stupid. The word you really want is ‘lessons’.
Your pal,
Jeffrey

So, is it valid and correct to use it at all?

Thanks!

• #2

Hello seroca,

It is of no use at all to quote a comment about the word. What we must have, if we are to comment intelligently, is an example of the word in use, in a full sentence, together with context and background.

• #3

I agree. I’ve seen it used quite often in expressions such as «the student will be able to apply these learning to the process of…» Usually referred to what students or participants learn after a class, seminar, etc.

• #4

This grows more confusing. The thread title and first post are about a plural noun, learnings. The example fragment is about something entirely different, these learning,
which makes no sense in English.

Which one are you interested in?

• #5

Ups, that was a mistake, it is learnings. the example should have read: «the student will be able to apply these learning

s

to the process of…»

• #6

Thanks seroca. That makes it all clear. The writer of that nonsense should be shot at dawn, with or without a blindfold, with or without a hearty breakfast, and with a stern prescriptivist grammarian available to perform the last rites.

«…will be able to apply these learnings…» is atrocious. It is also incorrect.

• #7

Thanks seroca. That makes it all clear. The writer of that nonsense should be shot at dawn, with or without a blindfold, with or without a hearty breakfast, and with a stern prescriptivist grammarian available to perform the last rites.

«…will be able to apply these learnings…» is atrocious. It is also incorrect.

I agree… but it is heard all too often in business circles. Perhaps it will go the way of yellow suspenders, but «at this point in time» is still with us.

• #8

Thanks seroca. That makes it all clear. The writer of that nonsense should be shot at dawn, with or without a blindfold, with or without a hearty breakfast, and with a stern prescriptivist grammarian available to perform the last rites.

«…will be able to apply these learnings…» is atrocious. It is also incorrect.

I agree with everything cuchu said.

Unfortunately, a tour of the Google universe using «apply these learnings» (with the quotation marks) as the search term shows that the phrase is being widely applied. I didn’t have the stomach to read all the entires, but it appears to be some kind of new and trendy jargon in the fields of education and business/marketing.

EDIT: The remark quoted in the first post now makes perfect sense.

• #9

So what would be a better way of saying it? «…apply these lessons…»?

• #10

Yes — I would much prefer «lessons» to «learnings».

• #11

Seroca, since I do not have many dealings with the world of trendy business jargon as used by those with shabby educations, I have never come across this silly term before. I can tell you, though, that if had seen any use of this nonsensical term, I would have thought the writer an illiterate ignoramus. You may thus count me among those who advise you NEVER to use this supposed «word».

• #12

Wiktionary (a dictionary wiki, that is, written by its users) has three definitions for learning, only one of which is countable. From its entry for learning:

3. (countable) Something that has been learned
*2007 April 5, Stuart Elliott, “Online Experiment for Print Magazine”, New York Times:
“We’ll take the learnings and apply them to the rest of our business.”

• #13

Thanks. It seems like there is consensus that it should not be used, but I am puzzled about mplsray’s posting. I am aware that wikis are not 100% reliable, but they seem to be quoting the NYT (a presumably more reliable source) Does it imply that there are times when «learnings» may be acceptable?

• #14

No, seroca, it is yet another example of the Times quoting someone who plays
cute games with English. The editors of that journal do not necessarily approve of statements by people they interview.

The Wiktionary piece, or the person who quoted it here, gives the mistaken impression that the statement was made by Times reporter Stuart Elliott. That is not correct. The article was written by Mr. Elliott. The quoted material is reproduced here:

»We’re going to learn so much about our readers,» Mr. Smith said of the online-only issue. »We’ll take the learnings and apply them to the rest of our business.»

More from and about Mr. Smith:

»Bringing our readers an extra issue in a digital format echoes the environmental issues we’re trying to highlight,» said Justin Smith, president and publisher of The Week in New York, which is part of Dennis Publishing.

source:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache…st+of+our+business.»&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Last edited: Oct 2, 2009

• #15

Got it. Thanks. This discussion has definitely being good learning for me! :0)

• #16

I disagree with cuchuflete‘s assessment that the person quoted is «someone who plays cute games with English.» The person is, on the contrary, using an established sense of the term, and my purpose in quoting Wiktionary was to show a cite from the only dictionary which lists this modern use of the plural of learning, and which, furthermore, makes the point that the other senses of the word learning remain uncountable. But other dictionaries should list learnings as well, because not only has it been used, but it has been used in official contexts, such as in the name of the high school/community college course «Common Learnings,» as can be seen in a Google Books search here.

The Oxford English Dictionary lists several 17th-century examples of the word learnings, including cites from Francis Bacon and Shakespeare. There is nothing grammatically wrong with making learning plural—compare words such as feelings and sightings.

The word may be jargon, but that actually makes it standard just as much as a scientific term that is often used by scientists but is little known by the general public—essentially the meaning of jargon—has to be considered standard. Whether a writer should use it when addressing a general audience is a different matter. But it is incorrect to consider it simply to be an example of «playing cute games with English.»

I fully expect the Oxford English Dictionary to include the modern use of learnings in the future, and, given its use in at least one field, I would expect it to be included in other dictionaries eventually, especially in unabridged ones.

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Learnings is often seen as pretentious and useless business jargon, but its cousin teachings is pretty unobjectionable. What’s the difference?

February 11, 2021

This is a perfectly good sentence: “The philosopher’s teachings were hard to understand.” What about “The philosopher’s learnings were hard won,” though? Few people would object to the first, but the second includes a word that sets many people’s teeth on edge. Learnings makes it onto numerous online lists with titles like “The Most Annoying, Pretentious, and Useless Business Jargon.” What makes teachings unobjectionable and learnings unbearable?

Teachings means “what is or was taught” and learnings “what is or was learned.” Both words are verbal nouns, formed by adding -ing to a verb, and thus can be modified by adjectives and prefaced by articles (“the complicated teachings”). They are also count nouns (“the 8 teachings of Buddhism”). Learning without an “s” – a mass noun – is a common synonym for “knowledge” (“a man of great learning”). As soon as it becomes countable, though – the “top ten learnings … from the COVID-19 pandemic” – you’ve got an entry for Robert Hartwell Fiske’s Dictionary of Unendurable English.

From the 14th century to the end of the 18th century, English speakers found nothing wrong with learnings. One of the first books printed in England (1484) discussed the “three enseignements or learnings” a man gave to his son. Here, learnings means “lessons,” which, depending on perspective, can be taught by a teacher or learned by a student. Enseignements in fact means “teachings” in French.

Originally, the verb to learn was looked at from these two different perspectives as well. It could mean “to absorb knowledge” as it does today, making it the reciprocal action (sometimes called the “converse”) of to teach. But it also meant “to impart knowledge,” making it a synonym of teach too. “He taught them philosophy” and “he learned them philosophy” would have been equally correct until the beginning of the 19th century.

At that point, grammarians began to stress the importance of making distinctions between converses such as lend/borrow and teach/learn. By 1885, when Mark Twain has Huck Finn relate that his guardian “learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers,” this difference was well established – “learned me” signals Huck’s lack of education. Since in the 19th century the mass noun learning was 100 times more common than the count noun learnings, people uneasy with the teach-learn distinction may have erred on the side of caution and rejected learnings along with “learned him.”

Learnings surged in popularity during the 1950s, in business jargon and edu-speak, which did little to make it seem more “correct.” But it is now used widely. We’ll have to endure learnings for the foreseeable future.

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«Learnings» is the plural of «learning» in the sense of «(specific) things or lessons that have been learned». It is often considered nonstandard English, even though it is rather widely used. If you are only talking about general knowledge rather than specific things you have learned, I would definitely use the singular «learning».

Wiktionary has rather thorough usage comments on the word «learnings»: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/learnings

The term learnings was not in common use in the 19th and 20th century, though the countable noun sense learning (“thing learned”) dates to Middle English (14th century; see leornyng), and the plural learnings to Early Modern English. Note that early use of learnings often have the sense or connotation “teachings” (see examples above), as was the case of learn generally. It has found occasional use for centuries, including by Shakespeare,[1][2] and parallel constructions are commonplace – compare teachings and findings.

However, from circa 2000 it became a buzzword in business speak, particularly in constructions such as “key learnings” or “apply these learnings”; this was preceded by occasional educational use from the 1950s. Some disapprove of this, and it sounds ungrammatical enough to be used as an example of broken English, as in the comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006). Suggested alternatives include lessons learned, “things one learned” – or simply lessons – discoveries, findings, insights, and takeaways.

«Learning to live with ‘learnings’» from CS Monitor (2021) comments:

Learnings is often seen as pretentious and useless business jargon, but its cousin teachings is pretty unobjectionable. What’s the difference?

Learnings surged in popularity during the 1950s, in business jargon and edu-speak, which did little to make it seem more “correct.” But it is now used widely. We’ll have to endure learnings for the foreseeable future.

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 25: Every word is a real word. It’s been

lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies

mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 25 show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to

Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics. I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: And I’m Gretchen McCulloch, and today we’re getting enthusiastic about how

every word is a real word. But first, it’s almost our second anniversary! Whoa!

Lauren: Yay! Next month is our anniversary month. We like celebrating in November. It

will be episode number 26. We can do maths, don’t worry. It’s not episode 24 because we launched

with several episodes at once, but we are very excited about our anniversary month.

Gretchen: Yes! And on our first anniversary, we celebrated by asking you to help more

people find the show, and you definitely came through. We ended up thanking almost 100 people in

our anniversary post for all your recommendations on social media. And we saw a big bump in

listeners, which kept going afterwards and even until now. And so, this year we want to see if we

can thank 200 of you for recommending Lingthusiasm to people in your lives.

Lauren:

That means we need your help. So if you know anyone who could use a little bit more language

nerdery in their lives, this is the month to share the show on social media. Email people, text

them, send it to your group chat, or just leave a well-placed sticky note for the person in the

office. Writing a review or even just leaving a rating on whatever podcast app you use really helps

us so much. It helps other people find the show, and it helps encourage other people to click Play

if they happen to come across us.

Gretchen: And it helps your friends who need more

interesting things to listen to, who want more fun linguistics in their lives. It helps them find

something that they’re going to enjoy. If you send us your reviews or tag us in your post on social

media, we would love to see them, and we’ll be thanking everybody that we know about in our

anniversary blog post on lingthusiasm.com. We’ll pick a couple reviews to feature there.

Lauren: If you would prefer to recommend us privately, please send us an email with

the story of how you recommended us so that we can add you to the thank you post.

Gretchen: Or feel free to just recommend us and not tell us about it. You can still

get the warm, fuzzy feeling. Plus you’ll get to feel a warm, fuzzy glow of satisfaction both when

you recommend us and when we thank you all together at the end. Even if you don’t tell us about it,

you can still feel that warm fuzzy feeling.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is an independent

show, but we are lucky to have a massive marketing department, which is all of you.

Gretchen: Aww!

Lauren: And we really appreciate when you take the

opportunity to share Lingthusiasm with other people.

Gretchen: If everybody

introduced the show to just one new listener, our audience would double.

Lauren: So

this month, take the chance to recommend us or review us.

Gretchen: We really

appreciate it, and so do the people who are about to discover the show because of you. 

We also have

another way to discover the show, which is two live shows! In addition to the Melbourne live show,

which is going to be on the 16th of November, we also added a show in Sydney on the 12th of

November, so you can go to either of those shows. Just go to Lingthusiasm.com, look for the link

that says Live Show to get tickets.

Lauren: We’re really excited to be joined by

Tiger Webb in Sydney, who is the ABC’s language researcher. Super excited to also be joined by

Alice Gaby for our Melbourne show, who’s a researcher at Monash. And we’re also thrilled that we

will have both shows fully Auslan-interpreted as well.

Gretchen: Yeah, so the topic

of those shows is how the internet is making English better. We’re going to be talking about a few

bits that are coming out from my book and from other things on the internet, and through texting,

and emoji, and everything. There’s no knowledge of linguistics or of previous Lingthusiasm episodes

assumed, so feel free to bring your friends even if they have never listened to an episode, because

then they’ll have this whole back catalogue to discover. We’re really looking forward to seeing you

there and meeting people in real life after the show!

Lauren: Other quick exciting

news, we have new merchandise, including adorable space babies, t-shirts that say, “I want to be the

English schwa. It’s never stressed.” We also have baby clothes that say, “Not judging your grammar,

just acquiring it,” as well as new IPA scarf colours and now, IPA ties.

Gretchen: So

you can get the International Phonetic Alphabet on various items as well as the clever baby riff on “not judging a grammar, just analysing it.” The baby is just acquiring it; I love this one so much.

The space babies are so cute. Everything’s coming up babies in the merch these days –

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: – including this month’s bonus topic, which is

about multilingual babies and raising kids speaking multiple languages. For this and 19 other bonus

episodes – there are so many bonus episodes now! It’s like twice as much Lingthusiasm. You can go

to patreon.com/lingthusiasm and support the show and listen to all the bonus episodes.

Lauren: And while everything’s coming up babies, probably about time I let everyone

know I’m going to be having a baby in January.

Gretchen: What? What a coincidence! It

actually really is a coincidence.

Lauren: That’s actually quite the coincidence that

– it’s just baby month here at Lingthusiasm. We are definitely going to keep running all the way

through December, January, February, and beyond, so no worries about that. We’ll still have our

main episode every month as well as your Patreon bonus episode.

Gretchen: Yeah, so

we’ll be recording episodes, and events, and interviews, and so on in advance to make sure that we give Lauren

some mat leave from the show and make sure that everyone here still gets to listen to it. And I’m

very excited to hear the results of your new, long-term longitudinal language acquisition project!

[Music]

Gretchen: Have you ever heard, Lauren, someone say, “That’s not a real

word”?

Lauren: Oh my gosh, like, so often.

Gretchen: All the time.

Lauren: It’s just a go-to phrase that people throw around a lot. But when we started

talking about this idea of what is a real word and what is not, it seems like such a simple

throwaway line. But there’s so many things that are happening when people say this.

Gretchen: Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of different things that someone can mean when

they say, “Oh, well, such-and-such, that’s not a real word,” and it seems like breaking those down

individually can help us understand what’s really going on here and why – Spoiler Alert – all words

are real words. We’re going to come back to that. We’ll keep coming back to that.

Lauren: We’ll keep coming back to this very important point.

Gretchen:

I don’t like to do the fake Myth Bust-y thing where it’s like, “It’s an open question: Are there

some words that aren’t real?” Like, no.

Lauren: Absolutely not, spoiler alert.

Gretchen: I’m going to start with the answer and then we get to break it down and not

leave you hanging.

Lauren: Yeah, so there’s not going to be any “Surprise, everything

is a real word” at the end of this. We’re very happy to state that as a starting point.

Gretchen: “Are some words unreal?” I think it’s one of those questions that’s like –

that’s like saying, “Are some animals not animals?” Well, you’re already calling them animals,

like, what are you doing with yourself?

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Are

some words not words? No!

Lauren: The thing I find really interesting about the

different subcategories of “It’s not a word” is it shows how we conceptualise words and how our

brain processes different things in different ways. And how language is both this thing that

happens in our brains but also in our particular social contexts and interactions. That’s why in

this episode, we’re going to look at all the different things that people really mean when they

say, “That’s not a real word”. Shall we take a tour, Gretchen?

Gretchen: Okay, let’s

take a tour.

Lauren: We’ve given them very serious scientific category names because

everything sounds so much better when you give them a very official name.

Gretchen:

Yeah, the first kind of thing people mean sometimes is the “blobfish.”

Lauren: The

Blobfish Reaction.

Gretchen: The Blobfish Reaction. So if I’m like, “Oh, yes, here’s

a blobfish…”

Lauren: What the heck is a blob – “blobfish” isn’t a real word,

Gretchen. You just made that up. You’re not even sounding science-y by saying this is a blobfish.

You’re just looking at something that looks hideous and calling it a blobfish. That’s not a real

word.

Gretchen: It’s a cartoon thing. Blobfish are apparently real animals. I googled

“strange animals” to try to come up with the best example of a strange animal, and the blobfish one

– hands down, it is really weird and blob-y looking. You should definitely look it up. But more to

the point, apparently blobfish exist. Apparently the scientific community probably also has a Latin

name for them but definitely also calls them blobfish. This is something that, if you hadn’t heard

of it, like me half an hour ago, or like Lauren until two minutes ago, you’re like, “That sounds

fake.”

Lauren: I just looked it up on Wikipedia, and they are apparently a fish from

Australia. So now I’m feeling very – like I’ve failed as an Australian.

Gretchen: Oh

no. But they don’t have a name like “blubbo” or something?

Lauren: No, we haven’t

called them “blobbies” yet.

Gretchen: Ah, I think that’s just a failure of

imagination. But yeah, so sometimes your reaction is that’s not a real word because: I don’t think

that’s a real thing; I don’t even know if that’s a thing; or I haven’t heard this word before.

Lauren: I felt really embarrassed because I was probably about 26 or 27 the first

time I heard the word “isthmus.”

Gretchen: Oh, okay.

Lauren: And I just

did not have it – it turns out, we just don’t have isthmuses in Australia. It’s like a peninsula-

type thing.

Gretchen: Yeah, it’s kind of – I don’t know what the difference is

between isthmus and a peninsula now that I’m thinking about it. I’m sure someone does but off the

top of my head –

Lauren: The difference is that I had heard of the word “peninsula”

before I was 27.

Gretchen: I mean, I grew up on a peninsula, but I don’t know – and

there are, definitely, also some places called isthmuses – isthmae? Isthmapodes? What is the plural

of an isthmus? I can’t even say this word anymore. It’s too difficult.

Lauren: Yeah,

trying to have the first reaction of it – instead of being “That’s not a word,” trying to have the

first reaction of, “That is not a word I have encountered yet.”

Gretchen: Yes, I

haven’t heard of that. And how sad the world would be if I knew all the words already. Can you

imagine not learning any new words? You’d never have that like, “Whoa, what is that” or “I learned

a new thing now.” Imagine a world where you’ve learned all the words. That’s a terrible world!

Lauren: Imagine a world where the vocabulary was so finite that you’d run out of new

words and experiences to have.

Gretchen: Oh, what a horrible word – world. You know,

I’m trying to think of examples of this, because I have definitely heard of words far too late and

been like, “Whoa, that’s a real thing? Okay!”

Lauren: But also think of how quickly

your brain managed to absorb them and accept them. I now very happily accept that “isthmus” is a

real word and the isthmus of Oaxaca is a real place because my brain is capable of accepting new

words.

Gretchen: And that blobfish are real animals apparently. I saw a graph once

that said the average adult between the age of like, I don’t know, 18 and 55 or something, learns one

new word on average every day. We’re still learning new words all the way through

adulthood even though we think of learning new words as something you do when you’re a kid, or when

you’re in school, or when you’re acquiring a specific technical area, and yet we’re picking up new

words all the time.

Lauren: We’re perfectly capable of it. So the important lesson

here is that we don’t know all the words.

Gretchen: Erin McKean has a really nice

quote about this from her TED talk about redefining the dictionary. She says when people think

about a place and they don’t find that place on a map, they think there’s a problem with the map.

But when they find a word that’s not in the dictionary, they think this must be a bad word. But

it’s more likely to be a bad dictionary. And I think that really sums it up. Okay, maybe a word is

or isn’t in a dictionary, but you’ve still found it in the dictionary, that is something that’s

just made by people, and they still have to acquire all the words themselves.

Lauren:

That’s funny how we go, “I don’t believe you that ‘blobfish’ is a real word,” but it’s not like I’m

going to sit here and go, “I don’t believe you that Carlton is a real place.”

Gretchen: Yeah, exactly!

Lauren: And I’m going to take you to Carlton

when you’re here because there’s great ice cream.

Gretchen: Okay, good. Yeah, like,

“Oh, Lauren, I haven’t been to Carlton. I didn’t know there was –” actually, there’s a Carlton in

Canada as well, because the Brits and colonies and stuff. It’s the name of a University in Ottawa.

So I’ve been to that Carlton. I’m like, “That’s a real place.” But my Carlton is not the same as

your Carlton.

Lauren: Well, that is probably true in this case.

Gretchen: I think there’s kind of a subset of this category which is using an

existing word in a different sort of way. One of the things that I did for my very scientific

research of this episode was I looked for the quote “isn’t a real word” and “not a real word” to

see what kinds of words people were saying were to be a word. So this is how we came up with these

different categories as we took what people were saying about something not being real words and we

kind of broke them down into the different types of things people do. And a couple that we came

across people saying weren’t real words were things like “learnings,” which is, I guess, used in

teacher jargon to mean: the learnings; the learning outcomes; or the learnings that the students

will derive from this lesson are blah blah blah. I haven’t heard “learnings” being used in that

particular context, but I definitely believe that people could do it. And the annoyance that I was

seeing with someone calling that “not a real word” was more about being annoyed with jargon, or

being annoyed at using an existing word in a different sort of way that the other person wanted to

be like, “No, that’s not legitimate. I don’t want to acknowledge that one.”

Lauren:

And again, it’s this “I have never come across this before so it must be wrong” not “I just haven’t

had my brain expanded for this new category.”

Gretchen: Maybe there are more things

in heaven and earth, Horatio, than have been dreamt of in your philosophy, or your learnings as it

will.

Lauren: It’s also very likely – you could almost reliably put money on this,

but especially the ones that people keep coming back to, like “impact” as a noun is one that people

complain about a lot. And, like, there’s over years of records of people using that word in that

way. Generally, these ones become recurrent cycles of outrage when there’s no good evidence that

other people haven’t been happily using it this way for a very long time.

Gretchen:

Yeah, either it’s been used that way for a long time or it hasn’t been, but we could start doing it

now. It’s fine. People seem to pass along their annoyance with corporations, or with their boss, or

with stuff of being kind of new to you and therefore opaque or difficult to understand, with the

annoyance of the words themselves, when they’re just – you know, the words are innocent here.

They’re just channelling your feelings towards the boss or the – you know, there’s a lot of

corporate jargon going on, or something like that. Saying “learnings” – if people are using it as a

word; It’s a word now. And “impact” has been a useful verb and noun for many hundreds of years.

Lauren: The next type of “that’s not a word” reaction you find is an extension of

that form that we just talked about, which is what we’re calling the Funner Reaction.

Gretchen: When I came across this one, I specifically saw a lot of people using words

like “funner” and “funnest” and self-consciously saying of themselves like, “This game is funner

than the other one. I know that’s not a word.” So rather than using it as a criticism of someone

else, like I noticed with the other kind of examples, people were using it as kind of a pre-emptive

self-criticism, like, “Yeah, I know this isn’t a word. Don’t make fun of me for this, but it’s

something that I want to use right now.” And I think that’s slightly different.

Lauren: It’s something you want to use, and it makes complete sense. So it’s

something like “impact” as a noun is completely codified in English. There’s lots of examples.

Things like “funner” or “necessariness” or “squishable” are all words that might not be in a

dictionary, but we know what each of the individual parts of that are. We have English morphology

that’s sufficiently consistent and transparent that we understand what all of those bits are doing

when we combine them, even if they’re not codified normally to go that way.

Gretchen:

Yeah, you can add “-able” to a whole bunch of words. You can say “squishable,” or “huggable…”

Lauren: “Doughnutable.”

Gretchen: “Laughable,” “doughnutable.” I think

a lot more things should be “doughnutable” or “ice-cream-able.”

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Are the same types of things doughnutable that are ice-cream-able? Like,

this is great! It’s really cool that language can do this, and it’s a shame to see people limiting

themselves from this. Well, kind of not limiting themselves, but then adding this pre-emptive fig

leaf because we’re so used to limiting ourselves by not doing this type of linguistic play. It’s

there to be played with. Let’s play with it.

Lauren: Especially if you are – it’s

interesting that people feel they have to police themselves on social media, which is a more

playful and informal – maybe don’t start using non-standard combinations of bits of words in, like,

a job application or your Nobel Prize speech. Maybe stick with some more standard forms there. But

if you can’t play around with language on social media, it’s a bit sad.

Gretchen:

Yeah, well, and I think the question is not so much where is making up words or where is playing

around with words appropriate, but where is play appropriate. You know, certain types of

environments like a formal dinner or something aren’t necessarily appropriate for playing with your

food or playing with your words, but that doesn’t mean that other environments aren’t appropriate

for this. You know, there is a space for play.

Lauren: Look! I’ve made my soup

doughnutable!

Gretchen: Maybe don’t do this if you’re having dinner with the Queen.

Maybe don’t. But that’s a feature of a particular social situation, a broader social context, and I

think we have the sense that language should be more rigid than even other areas where – you know,

an experimental chef is admirable. Or if you’re good at experimenting in the kitchen, that’s a good

thing you can do. And yet, people feel the need to apologise for experimenting with their

vocabulary. Don’t apologise! This is great. This is a feature, it’s not a bug.

Lauren: I feel like there are some really expensive restaurants where you pay a lot

of money to have ice-cream-ised to soup.

Gretchen: Oh no. It’s worth experimenting

with this. Some of them are almost so well used that they’ve taken on status of their own. A lot of

people will observe, you know, you can be “overwhelmed,” you can be “underwhelmed,” but can you be

just “whelmed”? Or why can’t you be just “whelmed”? Some of these have been around for a while.

Lauren: Poor whelmed. It got abandoned by its cool, more morphologically complex

children.

Gretchen: Yeah, its children abandoned it. But yeah, let’s play with these

things.

Lauren: So “whelmed” was a word. It was a completely normal word, and we

added “under-” and “over-” and then we forgot about “whelmed.” And now people say “whelmed” isn’t a

real word. Poor whelmed.

Gretchen: It was real for a while. Why can’t it come back?

But I think it’s a matter of perception. If people start using “whelmed” again, people will figure

out what it means.

Lauren: Like a horse getting into a unicorn costume and it no

longer exists.

Gretchen: I think another reaction that I see from “Okay, is this a

word?” or “Can this be a word?” is what I’d like to call the Schadenfreude Reaction, which is like,

“Well, the Germans have a word for this.”

Gretchen: We English speakers, we can’t

possibly, but the Germans must have a word for it. This one always – it’s a very particular kind of

reaction because it’s a sense of, “It’d be great if we could create a word. It would be nice if

this type of thing existed, but I can’t possibly do that as an English speaker. We need to go to

another language and let them do it,” which is a lot of what the history of English-speaking

science and philosophy have done, is just go to Greek or Latin and make them create a word, and

then borrow it into English, because somehow that seems more legitimate. These days, it’s German.

But it’s the same sort of thing. And I think it’s that we create words in English all the time and

yet we have this sense of like, “Oh, maybe someone shouldn’t do that,” or those kinds of things. In

particular, German is very good at creating words by compounding them.

Lauren:

English is also good at creating words by compounding them.

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: It’s just that we still leave a space there.

Gretchen: Yeah, I

found someone saying that for some reason they thought “apple lovers” wasn’t a real word. And I was

very confused about this because surely all English speakers recognise “apple” and surely all

English speakers recognise “lovers.” So I guess they’re asserting that “apple lovers” together

isn’t a real word. But you just made it. Congratulations! Now it’s real.

Lauren: But

it’s got a space there, Gretchen, and I’m very anxious about the fact that a word is a thing that

has a space on either side of it.

Gretchen: Well, maybe this is the point of the

podcast where we have to say: For all that we’re saying all words are real, there’s another

linguistic sense in which a word isn’t even a linguistically meaningful unit because where you put

your spaces is a certain kind of arbitrary.

Lauren: It’s as much a product of the

history of our writing system as it is anything else.

Gretchen: Yeah, and the same

thing that gives German a word like “schadenfreude,” which is literally just “schaden,” which means

harm or damage, and “freude,” which means like happiness or joy, and they’re like, “Oh, harm-joy.”

English could do this too. English does the same sort of thing by smushing together multiple words.

There’s just – we’re more likely to leave a space there and less likely to shove them together. If

you wanted to say “apple lover” in German, you could definitely do that. It’d probably be something

like “Apfellieber.” But you just wouldn’t put a space there.

Lauren: Oh, that’s

right! We should use that in English.

Gretchen: But we could just say “apple lover”!

Lauren: So we could accept that having a space in the middle of something doesn’t

prevent it from being a word.

Gretchen: Yeah, and there’s lots of – you know,

dictionaries are really good at adding compound words even if they have a space in between them.

It’s just they seem like two words for the purposes of – if you’re doing word count on your Word

document, to be like, “How many words is in here,” it will count them separately because they have

spaces. But a lot of things like “greenhouse,” or “chalkboard…”

Lauren:

Smartphone…

Gretchen: Smartphone… You know, those started out with a space in

between them and then we gradually got rid of the space. German just goes a little bit faster than

us in getting rid of the space.

Lauren: There’s also one that I’m sure you have an

example from when you were, perhaps, growing up or when you move to a different dialect area, where

someone essentially tries to shame you for using a form that isn’t part of standard English or is

less-used in standard English. We’ve called this the Ain’t Reaction.

Gretchen: I

think “ain’t” is the quintessential example of this, because it’s so present in so many varieties

of English, and it’s so shamed in all of them where it’s present, and yet it’s still there, and

it’s still alive and kicking in English. People write letters to the editor about finding it in

dictionaries like, “Aaaargh, this shouldn’t be there and it’s because it’s not real,” and there’s

so much animus towards “ain’t.”

Lauren: How many decades and centuries of people

telling other people “This isn’t a real word” has it been and “ain’t” is still going strong? It

just makes me so happy.

Gretchen: Yeah, good job “ain’t,” you’re a fighter. Well, it

starts out as a contraction of “amn’t,” like “am not.” “Is” goes to “isn’t,” but what does “am” go

to?

Lauren: Amn’t!

Gretchen: “It isn’t,” but “I amn’t.” That eventually

turns into “ain’t.” That’s why there’s no “amn’t” now. Except I think there is in a couple

dialects, but not in most dialects. So “ain’t” takes on that function, but then once it stops

sounding directly like “amn’t,” it’s like, “Well, I could just expand and work for all of the

different pronouns!” It’s very versatile. It’s super useful. And yet it’s highly, highly

stigmatised. The way that that stigmatisation is expressed is, specifically, in this “not a real

word.”

Lauren: I think it speaks to the fact that “not a real word” gets used as this

really broad, un-reflexive, unconsidered response to this thing that clearly is a word people use

all the time and that the only reaction you have is “That’s not a real word” instead of “That is a

word that is considered informal and is probably best not used on this tombstone.”

Gretchen: I’m sure someone’s used it on a tombstone. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of

nuance in that. And this is one of the examples where “That’s not a real word” gets used to shut

down discussion and shut down argumentation, especially like, “Oh, that’s not a real word.” “Well,

I looked it up. It’s in the dictionary.” And then you’re like, “Well, that’s a bad dictionary now

because it had this not-real-word in it.” It’s one of those things, like, you can’t have an

argument with somebody who won’t at least acknowledge what would have to exist in order for them to

be proven wrong.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: You know, if you say, “Well,

would you accept that dictionary as a source”? And then you show them the word in Merriam-Webster

or Oxford – all the dictionaries have “ain’t” – and then you show them there, and they’re like,

“Well, I don’t accept this as a source either.” You’re like, “Well, you just changed the goalposts

now.” Who do you accept as the ultimate arbiter for what is or isn’t a word? Or is anyone who makes

the assertion something isn’t a word automatically the correct one?

Lauren: I just

feel like if someone says to you, “That’s not a word,” it’s really unfair that the burden of proof

falls on you.

Gretchen: But I’m like, “Here’s a store that’s there.” And you’re like,

“Nope. Not a real store because it’s not in the yellow pages yet.” I’m like, “But you can walk into

it. It’s a store that will sell you things.” They’re like, “Nope.” No one’s ever asked, “Oh, not a

real word? Well, define a real word. What is a real word?”

Lauren: I guess the

challenge here is – the easy response is to say, “Well, here’s evidence that it is.” But often when

people are saying this, there is something here that’s about language policing, and it’s often

cover for some kind of classism, or racism, or it’s particularly picking on the language of a

particular subgroup, or it’s covert sexism. So there is something here that’s unpleasant, and I

wish people would stop doing.

Gretchen: But even when I agree with them, it’s also

still an argument made in bad faith.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: You know,

it’s not – if someone says, “Well, you know, this isn’t a word,” even if I agree that this was

probably a typo that someone made, or this is something that maybe wasn’t appropriate to a

particular context, legitimising the argument that “not a real word” is a reasonable response to

anything is still a problem, even if the core thing that they’re getting at might have some utility

in the context because it’s so undefined, and it’s such an easy way of covering for classism and

racism and all sorts of these kinds of discriminations that people smuggle into language.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: The problem is the incorrect ideas about how

language works, not the particular words being used. Another type of word that people have the

reaction “It’s not a word” to is a word like “smush” or “smoosh” or “aaaargh.”

Lauren: So things that are more representative of sounds, or reactions, or feelings

that are often informal, or onomatopoeia.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I think this begins to

get into like, “Oh, it’s not a word because my computer gave me a red underline when I tried to

type it.” There are lots of different ways to try to spell “aaaargh,” and I definitely don’t think

computers, generally, have all of them. That doesn’t mean that a particular one isn’t going to be

the exact one you want right now but, thinking about those areas, we’re trying to represent certain

moods, or certain feelings, or certain onomatopoeias, or certain other kinds of sounds that exist

in nature or in the depths of our soul, like “aaaah.” These are hard to write adequately.

Lauren: And a lot of onomatopoeia in English is a bit not-standardised, and people

kind of play with it a lot. In other languages, it can be more codified into the language. If you

think about onomatopoeia in terms of the sounds that animals make, we have lots of codified ways of

doing that. You know, pigs “oink” and ducks “quack,” and that’s very codified. You’ll find “quack”

in the dictionary. And you’ll probably find “oink” in the dictionary. But, essentially, language is

very messy at the boundaries in the way that what is a word and isn’t a word – and you can’t just

be like, “Well, it’s got a space.” That gets a bit fuzzy at the boundaries. The same with this. So

like “smush” might be more of a word than “aaaah,” which is perhaps all that easy to say. And, you

know, “haha” is more of a word than [laughing noise] in terms of laughter.

Gretchen:

Yeah, but there’s a certain kind of intentionality to them too, which I think distinguishes even

something like “aaaargh,” which can be spelled in a whole bunch of different ways, from something

just kind of randomly mashing on your keyboard, or having your cat walk across your keyboard –

Lauren: Or actually screaming, which we won’t do for the sake of your ears.

Gretchen: Yeah, no screaming on this podcast. If you’d like to scream, please provide

your own scream here. But there’s a certain conventionalised way of representing those, and they

have a certain recognisability to them and language-specific way of doing them, even if there’s

also this flexibility around them as well.

Lauren: At the opposite end, moving back

to things that do fit within our expectation that they only have spaces on either side, they

usually have relatively regularised spelling conventions, but people get very upset about them, is

when brands make forays into word creation.

Gretchen: Oh dear.

Lauren:

And because – I think one thing that upsets people about this a lot is – when it doesn’t feel

forced, we don’t think about it. And we accept a squillion brand names into our lives, and they

just get absorbed, and we’re completely fine with it. And then there are times where it just feels

very forced, and so…

Gretchen: It crashes.

Lauren: I have named this

the Tronc Reaction when people say “That’s not a word.” So “Tronc” was the Tribune Publishing

Company. Quite a few years ago they rebranded themselves to Tronc: T-R-O-N-C.

Gretchen: Yeah, which was just – they got kind of widely made fun of for it on social

media as just like, “Why have you picked this name? It’s so ugly. It’s plunky. It’s tronc-y. It’s

not a good name.”

Lauren: And there is something about – you know, it doesn’t have a

particularly standardised English spelling – it’s T-R-O-N-C – but it definitely fits. It’s not like

it’s against the kind of sounds that you can put together in English.

Gretchen: Yeah,

and it definitely sounds a bit, I don’t know, like, plunky. It’s a bit clumsy-sounding. But we’ve

incorporated so many weird words into English, things like Xerox or Kleenex, which have a lot more

X’s than a normal English word does, or something like Google or Twitter, which sounded very

frivolous when they were first introduced, and now we’re just like, “Oh, yeah, of course, I’m going

to google it.” And it doesn’t seem weird to us because we’re so used to them.

Lauren:

And I think it’s partly that we’re very happy to accommodate new words when we need them. So Google

sounded pretty silly when it started, and now we talk about googling things to the point where, if

I’m trying to find something in a document, I’ll sometimes be like, “Oh, I just have to google for

that word.” It’s like, I’m not even in the proprietary search engine. It’s just become the handy

word. So if the language needs that word – whereas I don’t talk about “Bing-ing” anything.

Gretchen: But, yeah, like, “I’m going to go Yahoo it.”

Lauren: I don’t

have any particularly strong feelings about either of these search engines.

Gretchen:

But one of them is definitely a lot more verb-y.

Lauren: One of them has definitely

verbed into English a lot more happily.

Gretchen: I even use “Skype” to indicate for

general video calls even if I’m not actually using Skype’s platform.

Lauren: Oh yeah,

it doesn’t matter what platform I’m using, it’s still – that’s become generic.

Gretchen: It’s like, “Hey, Lauren, do you want to Skype?” And then of course it’s

gonna be on Google Hangouts or something. It’s not gonna be on Skype.

Lauren: Which

is problematic for companies. You know, when their brand gets used generically, it means that they

lose some of the brand copyright power. But I think it shows that language can be quite

accommodating. I mean, English does love adding new words all the time. Whether they come from a

top-down company or not seems to be a bit arbitrary. But it’s the thing about when we need them.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: You know, Skype came around as the first video

platform that I use.

Gretchen: It’s when we need them or when – it’s something that

people decide for themselves kind of bottom-up and not, I think, something forced down. Another one

that I had a lot of fun with seeing people do on this was – so somebody replied to the Pope’s

Twitter account, where the Pope was talking about the Beatitudes, which is – it’s a thing in the

Bible, I don’t know. Being like, “‘Beatitudes’ isn’t a real word.” It’s like, “Look, guys. This is

the Pope.”

Lauren: I probably can’t tell you what a beatitude is off the top of my

head but, frankly, if the Pope is talking about them, he probably thinks they’re real a word.

Gretchen: Yeah, yeah. Like, “Is this really the hill you want to die on right now?”

Like tweeting at the Pope being like, “This obscure bit of theological terminology, which you have

spent your entire life studying, is not a real word.” I also found somebody saying that

“gubernatorial” is not a real word? And I agree this word looks weird.

Lauren: I kind

of almost feel compelled to agree. There is some story here where “governor” and “gubernatorial”

came into English through slightly different – There’s always the French-from-Latin paths.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And like, one of them came in via Latin via

French, and one of them snuck in straight via French or something. And that’s why “gubernatorial”

is – it should just be “governatorial” if we’re going to have a regularised system. But English,

like any language, can handle quite a bit of irregularity in the vocabulary.

Gretchen: Yeah, and you get the impression people who are using arguments like this –

you know, they’re not really saying to the Pope like, “I don’t trust your command of the English

language,” especially the Pope’s social media officer, who probably isn’t even the actual Pope.

What they’re saying is, “This is an argument that I can make that” – like, we’re talking about the

beginning. You can use this as an argument even if you don’t believe it, because it immediately

shifts the burden of proof to the other person to say, “No, this is a word and here’s why,” and not

to you for being like, “Well, why don’t you think so?”

Lauren: It kind of reminds me

of a subset of this, which I like to think of as the Mansplain Reaction, which is where you say

something’s not a real word because it conflicts with your worldview, essentially.

Gretchen: I really like an example of this that I found, which was somebody saying

that “conspiracy theory” is not a real word.

Lauren: Oh, okay.

Gretchen: I know!

Lauren: Why is “conspiracy theory” not a real word?

Is it because it has a space in it? Gretchen, we’ve been through this one.

Gretchen:

No, somebody said it’s a made-up mind-control word that causes one to dismiss the facts of any

investigation. I was like, “Oh, okay.”

Lauren: This is a pretty prototypical example

of a Mansplain Reaction.

Gretchen: Yeah, so it’s like, “I don’t like the concept

expressed by this word, so I’m going to attack the word not the concept,” or say like, “It was

unnecessary to name this concept because I don’t think the concept is important or I don’t think

the concept exists.”

Lauren: There’s no such thing as “mansplaining.” We’re just

having a conversation in which I am aggressively disagreeing at you.

Gretchen: Right.

I think the big problem that I have with the “not a real word” argument is it implies that there

are some sorts of words that aren’t real. But by the time something exists for you to say, “It’s a

kind of word,” that’s all it takes to be a real word.

Lauren: And words are words by

consensus. No word is a real word. Every word has to start off by a group of people agreeing that

this string of sounds has this particular meaning. And some people in some contexts have more

authority in naming these things. You know, I will probably trust a doctor in telling me whether a

word means a particular thing in terms of medical usage. I will definitely trust someone to tell me

what their name is rather than trusting myself.

Gretchen: Yeah, I think there are

certain kinds of authorities. A person is the ultimate authority on what their own name is, and, by

that logic, linguists should be the ultimate authorities on whether words are real or not. And what

we’re telling you is all the words are real.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more

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Gretchen:

Especially this month when we’re doing our special anniversary round of recommending to help the

show grow! Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio

producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producers are Emily Gref and AE Prévost, our production

assistants are Celine Yoon and Fabianne Anderberg, and our music is by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.