This is a special post for one of my loyal blog snorkellers – you know who you are – who was kind enough to point out ot me that the word ‘equivalenting’ didn’t really exist. (I used it in a previous post – do keep up, Blog Snorkeller Minor!)
I, of course, pointed out that it did exist, and provided an example – which I found on the internet and, frankly, do not have a scooby as to its authenticity. But the point (which I didn’t actually make) was that – in reality – this is how language evolves and becomes the multi-syllabic mystery that has fascinated me practically for as long as I can remember.
But – he brooded, darkly – some things are beyond the pale. This morning, after having fought off the waiter who wanted to bring me some home fries and a ‘breakfast salad’ (whatever, in the name of all that’s holy, that is), I picked up a copy of the New York Times, in an attempt to wring some news from it.
Apparently, the American Army is losing the war against PowerPoint. There are, apparently, people employed simply to prepare update presentations and they are being called the PowerPoint Rangers. Also, it appears, the top brass are not terribly happy with it. All this led to the following quotation: “There are some issues you cannot bulletize.”
Bulletize?
Then the story about the college somewhere in the US which has had two deaths from heroin overdoses in two years. The college is now being patrolled – probably rightly – by US Federal Agents, who are concerned about the “big-businessification of the drug trade”.
Big-businessification?
These are made up words. They have no place in the evolution of language.
Makes ‘equivalenting’ seem almost erudite, do you not think?
thewordmonger 
OK. Point made. I still hate “equivalenting” but surely the US army is using “bulletize” (which obviously should be spelt “bulletise”) incorrectly: proper use would, for example, be “we bulletized an Afghani civilian”.