Editorials

Our Favourite ‘-ism’ Words

9 February 2017

By Joseph

The ‘-ism’ words dominate world affairs. From racism, sexism and fascism to satanism, communism and ecotourism, we hear these words a lot – maybe too much – but in the grand scheme of ‘-isms’ we don’t actually know their family very well at all. There’s around 2,100 ‘-ism’ words in the English language compared to 171,476 words in the English language. That means that 1% of words in the English language end in ‘-ism’. In language terms, that’s quite a lot.

So let’s go through some of my favourite ‘-ism’ words:

1) Trumpism

We’re starting off with a very topical ‘-ism’ word meaning: ‘The philosophy and politics espoused by Donald Trump’

2) Hamletism

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it means: ‘disastrous indecisiveness’.

3) Yobbism

Going to school, college and university, I bet we’ve all had to deal with those choosing to practice the dark art of ‘yobbism’.

4) Handism

Surely deserving of being held in the same contempt as the likes of racism and sexism: ‘handism is prejudice based on whether a person is right or left handed’.

5) MacGyverism

Formed as a result of the American television show ‘MacGyver’ in which the protagonist (a secret agent) is seen enacting extremely ingenious solutions to crises. Meaning: ‘an ingeniously improvised solution to a problem’

6) Moronism

The unfortunate condition of being a moron.

For the final entry, I couldn’t resist including this classic primary school tongue twister.

7) Antidisestablishmentarianism

‘Opposition to the disestablishment of the church of England’

(The definition was much lesser known amongst said primary school children)

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