I am generally opposed to making nouns of verbs or vice versa so I should definitely have trouble with this one but Rett, makes a persuasive case that “affordability” really does deserve to be the word of the hour.
Jessica Rett, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, said “affordability” is “a much weirder” noun than “economy.”
“We come to it via this indirect route. It starts off as a verb: afford,” Rett said.
From there, it becomes an adjective adjective: affordable. Stick another ending on it to make it a noun: affordable. This path from a verb to an adjective to a noun means the word “affordable” holds lots of adjectival properties that “economy” doesn’t hold, Rett said.
“Nouns like economy often describe a bunch of dimensions all at once, but affordability is really honing in on a particular dimension,” she said.
This means the word “affordable” is easier to understand, since it’s just about one slice of the whole economy. All of this could add to the word’s political power.
“The economy is something that you have to have a PhD in order to be a specialist in,” Rett said. “But everyone’s an expert in affordability, because it’s very subjective. It’s relative to their own personal experience, and it’s something that they have a daily interaction with.”
I think this is missing the political angle. Affordability overnight becomes the preferred word to describe an issue that voters care a lot about. Previously, we called it "inflation", "cost of living", "rising prices". They are describing the same concern; now instead of saying we have an inflation problem, we are supposed to say we have an affordability problem. Is it the case that they want to push the I word out of our minds?
ReplyDeleteThis post also reminds me of Andrew's thread on "ladder of abstraction". Affordability is a more abstract concept than inflation. Inflation is closer to raw data (i.e. price data). Affordability is a subjective feeling.
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