"Dysfunctionate"

A very good friend I worked with at a company long, long ago had a favorite word. Every time something got more screwed up than Hogan's Goat, she would shake her head and say, "That is so dysfunctionate!". She was a very bright, successful woman with a good vocabulary. It pained me to have to remind her that dysfunctionate is not a word - or as some would say, it became an Al Haig word (General Haig was famous for taking a real word and make it into something which was not in the dictionary).

One day when we were having coffee, she again used the word as it related to some asinine policy we were forced to deal with. I once more told her the usage of this "non-word" worried me as I was afraid she might use it in front of customers or during an executive review. She understood my concern and then told me the following - "Sometimes when something is soooo screwed up, the word dysfunctional just is not good enough. Dysfunctionate is one step beyond dysfunctional".

After a while I became accustomed to hearing this word. In fact, even though I never use it, I  also like it better than dysfunctional. It is more impactful (another non-word) - it is more far reaching. Then I think of using it today as it relates to how our huge problems are being handled. For example:

 

• After spending over 1/4 trillion dollars on the Department of Energy, rather than reducing our dependence of foreign oil, our DEPENDENCE has increased from 40% in the 1970's to almost 60% today. Dysfunctionate.
• Our electricity demand is going to increase 20% over the next two decades and we are trying to regulate coal burning power plants out of existence and legislate away the chances of building any new nuclear power plants. Dysfunctionate.
• While suffering through the worst drought in decades, we continue to use 40% of our corn products to be burned up for ethanol. Dysfunctionate.
• With our National Debt getting ready to crest $16T, with the last four years showing deficits of $1T or more, the Federal Reserve is ready to do yet another money printing binge to further risk the specter of inflation on top of everything else. Dysfunctionate.
• With the "financial cliff" fast approaching by year's end, with no plan by anyone to fix it, the CBO has just released an opinion that failure to resolve this issue will result in another recession early next year and U3 unemployment rising to 9%. Dysfunctionate, once again.
• I could go on with more examples, but truthfully, it is too depressing.

 

Sometimes it just makes sense to use a word which is nonsense to describe things that make absolutely no sense what so ever. We are a clever nation - the world has looked to us for solutions for decades. How in the world can we end up tripping all over ourselves when problems of this magnitude face us all? As the world waits and watches to see if once again America will light the way, show the example of how make the hard look easy and the impossible look difficult, we are instead showing them our new word. Dysfunctionate.