Talk:-isation

RFD

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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-ization

-isation

On the cleanup discussion, WT:RFC#-ization, DCDuring (talk • contribs) asked how many of the derived terms were derived from -ization, I said probably none, all from other languages or from verb ending in -ize then suffixed with -ation. This exists as a string of letters but not as a suffix, the same -ork exists as the final letters of a word (work, rework, overwork) but it's not a suffix. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

• While I agree that the words on the page are probably not formed in that way, I believe that there are words that are. For example, pejoratives like "stupidization" get a CFI-worthy number of Google Books hits, (see also "moronization") and are almost certainly generated by appending "-ization" to "stupid" and "moron". Similarly, "Frenchization", although "Frenchise" is not a word. bd2412 T 14:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
• See also: 2007, Dario Castiglione, Chris Longman, The Language Question in Europe and Diverse Societies, p. 250:

  There has never been a Germanisation of Geneva analogous to the Frenchisation of Brussels or the Englishisation of Montréal.

• bd2412 T 14:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Let's get some real (attested) examples into the entry, then. They should serve to put this kind of affix in appropriate perspective. DCDuring TALK 16:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

How do we know that someone who attached -ization to a word did not really attach -ize and then immediately attach -ation to that? —CodeCat 16:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Attestation, the same way we know anything around here. If X-ization is attested and X-ize isn't, then the suffix -ization was added to X, rather than -ation being added to X-ize. —Angr 17:41, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

But how do you know that? —Ruakh_TALK 18:11, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Here are some more examples:

• 2012, Susanna Rostas, Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico City, p. 218:

  The Mexica do not sing alabanzas, thus any recent Mexica-ization, or rather Aztecization, of existing alabanzas (or the newly written) is the result of the Concheros' increased interest in the Aztec past and their desire to celebrate it.

• 2003, Kevin Featherstone, Claudio Maria Radaelli, The Politics of Europeanization, p. 27:

  The chapter covers the domestic impact of the public policy of the European Union (EU), hence one could use the term 'EU-ization’ in this context.

Mexica-ize is not attested at all (note that this is a reference to the Mexica tribe, and not a misspelling of Mexico or Mexican), Aztecize might be (barely), but I see no connection between the few works using the -ize phrase and this use of -ization, and EU-ize is also not attested. bd2412 T 18:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. I see no reason for deletion. The comparison to "-ork" is absurd. —Ruakh_TALK 18:11, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The entry could use some clear attested examples that unambiguously show that a word ending in -ization/-isation preceded the corresponding word ending in -ize/-ise. But it is highly likely that we would find numerous instances on unattestable formations. I suspect that some of these compound suffixes, for which I have a visceral dislike, are in fact highly productive, although not always of attestable terms. Some author of a book on morphology that I read asserted that the existence of numerous rare terms formed in this way is the best evidence of the productiveness of an affix. DCDuring TALK 18:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I still don't think this is really a suffix in itself, but a result of adding two suffixes where the middle result happens to have been skipped. If a word ends in -ages but the corresponding word ending in -age is not attested, do we conclude that -ages is a suffix to form 'plural abstract nouns'? I would prefer to conclude that it's simply the result of adding -age to a word, and then -s to the result. —CodeCat 18:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The first stem I picked was dumb. A web search shows both dumbize and dumbisation. The earliest instances I found with dates were 2001 for dumbization and 2003 for dumbize. Dumbization is also apparently more common. You can satisfy yourself by selecting some similarly barbarous formations.

But what does that prove? 'dumbization' may be attested earlier but that doesn't mean it wasn't formed by first mentally creating 'dumbize' and then adding -ation to it. Nobody would have needed to actually use the word 'dumbize', yet it would be implicit in the formation. After all that's how back-formations tend to work, and that's probably what happened in this case too. So while we can't prove that 'dumbize' wasn't formed before 'dumbization', we also can't prove that it was. Attestations don't tell us much about the mental process that goes into word formation, especially not when an intermediate step is skipped because it's implicit. —CodeCat 19:39, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's another example restricted to an "-ization" suffix:

• 2010, David Jenkins, Suharto and His Generals: Indonesian Military Politics, 1975-1983, p. 201:

  In the view of such officers as Dharsono, the disproportionate number of Siliwangi officers was both a result of, and a protest against, a “de-Siliwangi-ization” process instigated by Suharto.

Cheers! bd2412 T 20:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Keep. The intermediate stage with -ize is not necessary to form a new word with -ization. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Keep, sufficient evidence. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:21, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Kept. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 08:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)