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There is a word use that I hear all the time, and it drives me nuts.
The word "disconnect" as a noun. Isn't "disconnect" a VERB ?
As an example "There is a real DISCONNECT between x and y." (replace x and y with any noun) such as : "There is a real DISCONNECT between teachers and students."
This doesn't sound correct to me.
Shouldn't it be "disconnection" (or different words all together like "lack of communication" ?
Please help am I "DISCONNECTED" from correct English, or are they?
The word first came to my attention 10 or 15 years ago, at about the same time as "dysfunctional" became fashionable. I think of it as another example of our language evolving; I haven't actually adopted it myself, but I'm not hostile to it.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of changes I fight. There is no need to reverence someone when we can merely revere him, and I still maintain that my actions are not well-intentioned but well-intended. It's not true that the play stunk; no, it stank. (The same with "sink, sank, sunk", by the way.) And between you and me (not "you and I"), I see no reason to have more than one person at a time addressed as "Mr President"; all the others are EX-Presidents (governors, mayors, senators etc).
But I've enthusiastically adopted "y'all", I often use "ain't" in speech and I don't resent "disconnect" as a noun even though I don't actually use it myself.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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