Comfortability...

This is the second time since I’ve started my blog that I’ve had a request to use a certain word in a post. The first time was when my friend Nick asked me to use “dandy” – and not “fine and” dandy, mind you. Just Dandy. Poor, underachieving Dandy, who so longs for independence from Fine And. But more often than not, overbearing Fine And tries to tell Dandy what to do, and they wind up stuck together. Not what Dandy wants, necessarily, but what to do? Fine And and Dandy are such icons of togetherness that they have a hard time separating. Fine And Dandy. But I digress… what was I talking about? Ah yes. Comfortability.

My friend Faisal asked me to title my next post “Comfortability,” I think mainly because it’s a word he made up, and now he’s searching for validation. Although in Faisal’s defense, Eric mentioned that he found it on a website somewhere – and if you Google the word “comfortability” plenty of websites pop up that make use of this word. If you want to know about the comfortability of a couch, or the comfortability of cozy cotton pajamas, or the comfortability of a car, you can probably find it somewhere on the world wide web. The only problem is, comfortability isn’t a real word. Even now, as I type out my paragraphs in Word, preparing to cut and paste into my blog, Word is repeatedly underlining “comfortability” with a squiggly red line, in an effort to draw my attention to the error of my ways. (Of course, it’s also repeatedly underlining “blog.” However, “blog” DOES have an entry on dictionary.com… I guess I just don’t have an updated version of Word…)

And this is not all to say that Faisal goes around haphazardly making up words. In fact, most of the time, he has an excellent grasp of the English language (and a few other languages that I don’t even understand, so who am I to talk? How WOULD you say “comfortability” in Urdu?). Why, just a few years ago, Eric and Faisal and I were all having a discussion about the word “smelt.” Faisal and I were certain that smelt could, in fact, be used as a past tense form of the word “smell,” but Eric thought that “smelled” was the only proper word to use. And “smelt,” he believed, was something only having to do with metals. Like iron smelting and such. But, of course, Faisal and I were right, and Eric was totally, completely wrong. I mean, embarrassingly wrong, really. Comfortability is one thing, but smelt? I mean, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve found the word “smelt” used in various forms of writing and literature. I even looked it up in my German dictionary, and discovered that this particular form of the past tense of “smell” is used around the world.

But even if “comfortability” was a real word, I’d still have a problem with it. Because really, in what instance would you use the word “comfortability” that you couldn’t use “comfort”? Like the comfort of a couch, and the comfort of cozy cotton pajamas, and the comfort of a car. It’s kind of like the word “utilize” which IS a real word, but means the exact same thing as “use.” So why would anyone utilize utilize when they could just use use? But all pet peeves and joking aside – I honestly do respect Faisal’s thoughts and opinions very much, and if he wants to use (or utilize) “comfortability” in his everyday conversations, it’s fine with me. :)

But I seriously DO want to know how to say it in Urdu…


Faisal, using only household objects and an ordinary backpack, proves that comfortability is easily attained in any situation...