It has begun...

Sigh… it pains me to write this post, however, I feel it is my duty to keep everyone informed of the goings-on in the world of linguistics. Even if they happen to pander to the grammatically-challenged and simple-minded amongst us. Oh yeah, and also because Faisal threatened me with legal action if I kept this to myself…

This afternoon, I visited my go-to online lexicon, dictionary.com, to look up the word “specialness.” I used it in my previous post, and since Word underlines it with a little squiggly red line (signifying a possible misspelling) I looked it up to make sure I was using it correctly. And as long as I was wandering around the cyberworld dictionary, I decided to check on that “word” which has become the bane of my existence – the sneaky interloper that has been attempting to create a space for itself somewhere in between real, legitimate, useful words. That redundant, unnecessary conglomeration of letters that mocks me every time I hear someone use it in conversation. I am speaking, of course, of "comfortability."

So imagine my surprise when, instead of seeing the usual “word not found” message I’ve grown so used to, today I saw this instead:

1 result for: comfortability
com·fort·a·ble Pronunciation[kuhmf-tuh-buh l, kuhm-fer-tuh-buh l]
–adjective
1.
(of clothing, furniture, etc.) producing or affording physical comfort, support, or ease: a comfortable chair; comfortable shoes.
2.
being in a state of physical or mental comfort; contented and undisturbed; at ease: to be comfortable in new shoes; I don't feel comfortable in the same room with her.
3.
(of a person, situation, etc.) producing mental comfort or ease; easy to accommodate oneself to or associate with: She's a comfortable person to be with.
4.
more than adequate or sufficient: a comfortable salary.

[Origin: 1350–1400; ME <>]
—Related forms
com·fort·a·ble·ness, com·fort·a·bil·i·ty, noun
com·fort·a·bly, adverb


One result for comfortability??? Since when? How did this happen? There’s some sort of Comfortability Mafia, isn’t there? And they got to the dictionary.com people… they must’ve sent their most intimidating thug and made all kinds of threats… How else could this have happened? How else could an obviously made-up word find a place in what I’m starting to think is a made-up dictionary? I’m sure there was no coercion when they added, say, “apple” to the dictionary. Nope. An apple is an apple. No problem. Add it to the dictionary. Or “happiness.” Sure, great word! Add it to the dictionary. How about “existential”? Yeah, we can throw that in there, absolutely. Well, what about “comfortability”? Uh, sorry, no. Nope, not gonna work. We already have “comfort,” so why do we need comfortability? Uh, whoa, hey, wait a minute Comfortability Mafia Guy – whatcha doin’ with that grenade launcher? Heh heh – it was just a joke! Of COURSE we can add “comfortability” to dictionary.com! I mean, people love to have choices, right? Why have ONE word that means “comfort” when you can have TWO? Just because one is redundant and unnecessary doesn’t mean we can’t toss it into the mix!

Fortunately, a quick perusal of a few other online dictionary sites assured me that not everyone has jumped on this “non-existent word validation” bandwagon. But how long until the Comfortability Mafia gets to the rest of the dictionaries in the world? Oh, it’s a slippery slope… when one of them falls, the rest will soon follow.

And I have very little comfortability in this realization…