Thursday, August 4, 2005

More Englitch

This post is a bit of a red herring really - not even sure whether it counts as Englitch. But seeing as I'm trying to avoid the job application I should be writing, it'll have to do.

Englitch isn't just when people use words incorrectly; it's also when they make up words that don't need to be added to the language. And unfortunately bureaucracies are as guilty of this as anyone else.

In preparation for the job application, I was reading up on the policies and frameworks governing the role. In one paragraph I saw the following sentence:

"Each course will have a mangaeable number of learning outcomes, essential content and optional contexts for learning structured into semesterised units to provide maximum flexibility for students".

Now quite apart from the whole thing being quite difficult to understand, what do you suppose "semesterised" means? "The dog semesterised the poor wee rabbit". "She looked into the viewfinder and became utterly semesterised". "Don't semesterise me, you bastard!". Hmm. Dunno about you - they all work for me.

(Just looked up www.dictionary.com just to make sure I wasn't butchering a real word and the page said "No entry found for semesterised. Did you mean Mysterized?")

Mysterized? What the?!!!?

So then I looked up "mysterized" which (apparently) means "to make mysterious". So "semesterise" must mean "to make semesterous".

Glad I cleared that one up. Am sure to get the job now...

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