Thursday, March 31, 2005

How about disconnection, separation, division, detachment, dissolution, partition, dissociation, dissection...

The thing that I hate most about graduate school is the fact that I am forced to read essays and books by people who feel compelled to use hundred dollar words when a buck 57 word would work just fine. Case in point: I'm reading "Communication and Organizational Crisis" by Matthew Seeger. So I'm reading the chapter that I have to present on Saturday when all of a sudden a word popped up that was so weird that I initially thought he made it up. Here's the sentence:

"These processes are the principle variables that move an organizaed system toward bifurcation and crisis."

He used the word BIFURCATION. So I pull out my dictionary (also known as my new best friend ever since I started grad school) and look it up.

bi-fur-cate >v. -cat-ed, cat-ing. To divide or separate into two parts or branches.
--bifurcation n.

Cause you know, there's no other word that will work except bifurcation.

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