Winningest - a completely pointless word
I work for a Global company, which while actually Australian owned has quite an American style of internal communications. A recent copy of our company employee magazine quoted a well known NFL coach, describing him as "the winningest coach in the NFL".
Now I like new words, and I do believe that language should be a dynamic thing, not a fixed vocabulary. For some reason though, I find the word winningest to be quite irritating. It is unecessary, and to be honest it sounds a lot less elegant than "most succesful". No doubt we are only weeks away from words such as "losingest", "entertainingest" or perhaps "ridiculingest".
I for one find these words some of the confusingest I've heard for some time....
Now I like new words, and I do believe that language should be a dynamic thing, not a fixed vocabulary. For some reason though, I find the word winningest to be quite irritating. It is unecessary, and to be honest it sounds a lot less elegant than "most succesful". No doubt we are only weeks away from words such as "losingest", "entertainingest" or perhaps "ridiculingest".
I for one find these words some of the confusingest I've heard for some time....
posted by Jon the Hat at 1:47 PM
35 Comments:
Yours is the first site listed for my search of "Is winningest a word?" Thanks for your comments, even though no one has commented on them! I felt I needed to. If it is a real word, it is a bad one!
I am amazed at the power of the internet, to bring three anonymous people together, from the four corners of the world together(ok, 3 corners...ok, at most 2 corners, because I'm British too) united by only one thing:
The fact they think the word "winningest" is a stupid, stupid word.
God bless us. everyone.
Thanks for your comments. Would you believe it apparently losingest is now also a word. It wasn;t when I wrote this post last year! I suspect many online dictionaries have somewhat less stringent criteria for admitting a word than th Oxford English Dictionary...
The thing that I have never understood is that, eg. happiest = most happy, rainiest = most rainy, so winningest = most winning?
Would you ever describe a team as the 'most winning' team? This surely only makes sense in terms of 'a winning personality' etc.
'Victoriousest', on the other hand...
I am in complete agreeance with your post. I am completely sick of winningest being used by sports fans as an actual word.
It is the most annoyingest word this English major has heard!
I totally agree! In fact, I came upon this site b/c I was having an argument with my co-workers on whether "winningest" is an actual word. It just doesn't sound like a legitimate word. At all.
I agree too. Although I do consider myself the "winningest" better of stupid trivial facts in our office until today! I can't believe this is an actual word recognized in our official language ... Atleast I didn't have to do the dishes!
I totally agree. Is it that hard to say "has the most wins"?? This word sounds stupid.
You can add another corner Saudi Arabia, I also googled "is winningest a word" if it is I'm learning the wrong language...It sounds awful, winningest? bleh...
ditto - canada
I think I am correct in saying this word was invented in the US, and as a great Irish dramatist by the name of George Bernard Shaw once said "England and America are two countries separated by a common language".
The other day I heard some talking head on CNN say the following:
"Things are getting interestinger and interestinger"
Worse, I read an article on The Globe and Mail (Canada's NY Times if you will) regarding the new reading habits amongst couples. Many couples would take turns reading to each other so the act would be more of a shared experience. Anyway, one excerpt read as follows:
"Some couples read in bed, others in bed, still others on the porch in warm weather. Some take turns reading (reader and readee), while others delegate one person."
Reader and LISTENER FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!!!!!!
Correction:
"Some couples read in bed, still others on the porch in warm weather. Some take turns reading (reader and readee), while others delegate one person."
I was trying to find if winningest is a official word cause the announcers at the olympics kept saying it, each time sound like idiots to me. your site is the best possible first result.
P.S. it's been in the dictionary for 36 years so i don't think it can be taken out.
Hi Jason, your comments perhaps explain why there have been a few comments this week.. With Olympic commentators using winningest, perhaps talking about the incredible Phelps, certainly a few people have investigated the word!
ha ha...yeah i heard this word being used by my boyfriend about Phelps whilst he was watching the Olympics...i laughed him to scorn, but i suppose since it's actually a word I'll have to apologize for that one...Regardless of how inconsistent with the English language this word is...sigh
Oh, goodness me! Just to address a couple of aspects here...
I am of British (more specifically English) extraction and consider myself reasonably well-versed in use of the most glorious language ever created. Others have apparently concurred as they have credited me with academic success when measured against their subjective opinion.
Nev (supra), you've misunderstood what a superlative is. Just because there is such a word as happiest doesn't mean you can add a simple -est to any old word and convert it. It works like this:
Happy, happier, happiest...
There's no such word as winninger so why should it be taken one step further?
You're all wasting your time as our American counterparts have already butchered the once beautiful tones of English (English/England, have you spotted the link yet?) They (errantly) seem to imagine that you can take any old noun, add -ize/-yze (not even an -ise/-yse!) to the end of it and convert it into a noun.
E.g. a person who breaks into a house is a burglar; the house has been burgled. Oh, no, not in the good old US of A...what happens there? Your house has been burglarized. Yes, indeed. Fancy that. Taking a house and turning it into a person that can go out and rob other houses. Incredible, sad, and true.
And don't even get me started on how buoy could ever be pronounced boo-ee (ph) - where the hell does any 'e' sound come in there?
I blame Bush and his new-killer program (or is it nuclear...never could tell)
Quit wasting your time complaining on how the Americans refine the language. You have no room to complain as you still call sweaters "jumpers"? Explain to me how that makes any sense.
Opinion of a Twentysomething American.
I just read an article in the paper about a winningest coach, and I immediately thought what a horrible journalist, is he making up words? So I googled (how could one properly say that?)the word and yes, this site was first!
The origins of the word are from the 70's, so winningest goes along with all the other stupid words from that decade. I can imagine some hippie saying winningest and laughing his butt off because it sounds so funny.
I'm going to start using burgled! Some how I will find a way to pop that into any conversation. I love the British 'accent', I wish I could talk like that.
I have to agree with the minority, winningest should not be a proper word for the simple fact that you can't make a superative out of a verb. The basis for his horrible Americanism is 'win' which obviously is a verb. In this case the present tense has been developed into the present perfect into 'winning' before the awful est suffix has been forced onto the end. Try it with any other verb and you'll see how ridiculous it is. Buy, buyingest, sellingest etc. Doesn't work. It's just another example of America butchering our beautiful language.
Jumper makes as much sense as sweater. Do you put it on to make you sweat?
American English should be just called American and classified as a whole different language. Then we could happily let them create their own stupid words without having those words permeate through the media and corrupt English
The abuses that have crept in to e American English is alarming. It appears that years ofneglect in the teaching of grammer has resulted in this abberation.
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