Adjectives

“Disconcerning”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Verbs

My wife heard this yesterday.

Problem:
“Disconcerning” is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
Nearly everyone who says “disconcerning” actually is trying to say an adjective whose meaning is causing an emotional disturbance.

“Disconcerting” (notice the ‘t’ before the ‘ing’) — not “disconcerning” — is the adjectival form of the verb “disconcert”.

I believe that the use of “disconcerning” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “disconcerning” than to say “disconcerting” (which requires the speaker to emphasize the ‘t’).

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • disconcerning — 22,600 matches
  • disconcerting — 2,260,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 100:1, which is very encouraging.

Solution:
“Disconcerting”

“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredible small size …”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Commas

I saw this here.

Problem:
A comma is missing, or the adjective “incredible” is inappropriate here.

Explanation:
“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredible small size …” contains two adjectives in a row.

Either the writer wanted each adjective to modify the noun “size”, or the writer wanted to modify the second adjective to modify the first adjective.

If the writer wanted “incredible” and “small” to modify “size”, then a comma should go immediately after the first adjective — yielding the first solution.

If the writer wanted to modify “small”, then a different solution is required.

When one wants to modify adjective Y with adjective X, one must convert adjective X into an adverb.

Converting adjectives to adverbs usually requires adding “ly” and sometimes requires dropping a letter or two.

Converting the adjective “incredible” to an adverb yields “incredibly” — and the second solution.

Solutions:
“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredible, small size …”
or
“Foxit Reader is a … viewer …, with incredibly small size …”

“Suggestive Overall Improvements”

Adjectives

I saw this subtitle in a brainstorming document.

Problem:
“Suggestive” is the wrong adjective here.

Explanation:
The document contained notes from a meeting in which participants thought of ways to improve a company’s services.

The adjective “suggestive” means evocative; that suggests; rich in ideas.

“She wore suggestive clothing.” is an example of the appropriate use of this adjective.

“Suggestive” clearly was not what was intended for the brainstorming document.

The writer of this document was introducing a section that contained overall improvements that had been suggested by the meeting participants. This gives us the solution.

Solution:
“Suggested Overall Improvements”