LEND ME YOUR EAR: "IMAGINEERING" WITH FIXES IN LANGUAGE

Making up words to suit our purpose is one thing, coining them only to be trendy is another. But the habit is infectious, and occasionally we resort to prefixes and suffixes instead of searching for the precise word we want. Just add a ship or a hood, a dom or an ize, a mini or a mega, and presto, we've produced the word we need with a minimum of effort.

On a recent broadcast featuring Paul Harvey, a TV anchor informed us that "Chicago was Harvey's listenership." Paul Harvey grew up in Chicago, and what the speaker meant was that this accounted for his subject's accent. Sorry, Mr. Anchorman, but we detected more regionalism in your speech than in Harvey's, and this listener just jumped ship.

A foreign correspondent, recounting the advantages of freedom in Russia to himself and his co-workers, commented on the new "informationhood" in the country. The information we get in our land of the free also wears a hood off and on, but we call it "mis (or dis) information." Still, "informationhood" served the speaker's purpose.

As stated in an earlier column, English has countless words that consist of nothing but prefixes and suffixes. "Hackerdom", denoting a new realm of computer hackers who are plugging into productions by others of the genre, is a recent contribution by a writer for Time. "Hackerdom" seems another lazy coinage, but we are at a loss for a better term.

According to a critic whose name eluded my notes, "We are living in a new world of minidom." We have everything from "minibikes" to "minibuns" (actually, a cereal). To balance the score, we also have a world of megas, including "megabucks." That is, some have. We ourself have only minibucks, and the aforesaid critic is searching for something between mini and mega. I've considered midi, which already exists as a skirt or coat of mid-calf length, but midibucks? Sounds like minibucks with a cold.

"Eratomania" came our way through Vanity Fair it figures and is obviously an effortless combination of erato and mania. Both fixes are currently being done to death by psychiatrists and writers fixed on sex. The coinage is said to refer to a "rare personality disorder" that develops when love becomes an obsession, especially if unreciprocated. One or two sessions with Sonya Friedman or Oprah Winfrey will make you wonder why the disorder is considered rare.

"Cinephiles" was used in a recent article in Time, along with "Gipperphiles" and "Gipperphobes." Gipper may not be a standard prefix, but it's close. All three double fixes appeared in a review of The Ron Reagan Show, beneath the words Son Burn. Any questions?

The terms stump and jumper were in our language long before either became fixes, and we heartily endorse their marriage in the new "stumpjumper" the first-ever mountain bike. The bike is said to be idiot-proof and almost maintenance-free" stipulations that engaged couples might well consider before taking the plunge.

Sometimes a coinage appeals to me because it tickles my funnybone. Several weeks ago, the elderly gentleman who hosts The Collectors on PBS decided that an elegant oil lamp brought in for appraisal, while a prize possession, had not been "iridized." The host is very funny and everyone knew he was being intentionally facetious in creating an ize word related to iridescent. At least he stopped short of "iridescentized."

An architect of note has explained that there is a fine line between architecture and "imagineering." To me, this coinage suggests striving for perfection in more fields than architecture, and an acceptable play on words for making fixes in our language.