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Omar Ahmed Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

A perplexing question

I read the following two words in a text: aimfullness & self-assertedness. Are these two words really English words?

  

Top answer

Omar Ahmed I read the following two words in a text: aimfullness & self-assertedness. Are these two words really English words? At first glance they look like New Age self-help inventions.

— Anonymous

  • Omar Ahmed I read the following two words in a text: aimfullness & self-assertedness.
  • Are these two words really English words?
  • At first glance they look like New Age self-help inventions.
  • The OED has "aimful", the opposite of aimless, basically, with a few citations back to Carlyle.
  • The word in "-ness" should be spelled "aimfulness", one "l", which would seem to indicate that the writer was playing fast and loose to sound trendy and had no idea whether "aimful" was a word or not.
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2 Answers
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Omar AhmedI read the following two words in a text: aimfullness & self-assertedness. Are these two words really English words?

At first glance they look like New Age self-help inventions.

The OED has "aimful", the opposite of aimless, basically, with a few citations back to Carlyle. The word in "-ness" should be spelled "aimfulness", one "l", w

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Omar Ahmed

I read the following two words in a text: aimfullness & self-assertedness. Are these two words really English words?

I doubt it. They look made-up to me. They're just weird enough for me to say that I'm not sure I'd even trust the information in that text.

CJ

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