When a word ends in “ism,” amputate at once, it’s dying !

Posted on 2 March 2010 by Jacques Renaud

Cet article, ou ce “posting”, a son double, son jumeau français, cliquer ici. J’ai travaillé sur les deux en même temps.

Warning : This post is chaotic. Implicit in it : poetry doesn’t equate “rhyming,” “rhyming” doesn’t equate poetry. For those who still believe that it is necessarily so.

I hope to find more time to work on this piece. I’ve published it now. It’s not finished. Anyway. It’s also both a kind of game and an exercise in ad lib translation and adaptation.

For the moment, this improvised chaotic piece is a sort of minor curiosity in the form of a bilingual-oriented draft in progress, sparingly growing at the pace of a dropper, bordering on gag (or what else). Which is: an aphorism (the title), with the rest jotted down disheveled under it and improvised in haste.

In the future, I intend to put some flesh on it and instil some sense into it (Hell is filled with such good intentions…).

When a word ends in “ism,” amputate at once, it’s dying! … Or killing! Links in French pertaining to “isme” (“isme” in French – in English, it’s “ism”) : -isme (Wiktionnaire). Long list of words ending in “isme” on Wiktionnaire. Impressive : Liste of French words ending in “isme” (Wiktionnaire). Scalpels on the ready. A sample :

à-plat-ventrisme, aplaventrisme
à-quoi-bonisme
aaronisme (Extrêmement rare)
abélardisme
abélisme (Extrêmement rare)
abhumanisme
abichtisme (Extrêmement rare)
abitibisme
abnégantisme
abolitionisme (Beaucoup moins courant), abolitionnisme
abondancisme
abrahamisme
absentéisme
absinthisme
absolutisme
abstentionnisme
abstractionnisme
académisme
acadianisme
accidentalisme
accisme
accusisme
acentralisme (Extrêmement rare)
acéphalisme
acharisme
achérisme
achillisme (Extrêmement rare)
achromatisme
acléricalisme
acméisme
acomoclitisme
acrobatisme
acrochirisme
actinauxisme
actinisme
actinotropisme
actionalisme (Beaucoup moins courant)
actionnalisme
activisme
actualisme
aculturalisme
adamisme
adaptationisme (Moins courant), adaptationnisme
adaptionisme, adaptionnisme
adaptisme
adelphisme
adénoïdisme
adéquisme
adéterminisme (Extrêmement rare)
adiabatisme
adogmatisme
adolphisme
adoptianisme
adriatisme
adultérisme
adultisme
adventisme
adynamisme
aérodynamisme
aéromagnétisme
aéromodélisme
aéronautisme
affairisme
affirmationisme
affirmationnisme
afghanisme
africanisme
afrocentrisme, afro-centrisme
agathisme

The English list is as impressive. The riming effect is overwhelming. Here’s a preliminary result from WordNavigator . WordNavigator knocks over a stack of more than a thousand terms in “ism.” Reading those lists, word after word, is like reading a powerful, insisting, raving, somewhat insane, often hilarious piece. I know. No surprise here. Something similar can be done with other word lists. Anyway. The poem rimes all the way down, isming to the very last drop of the drill.

Each of the following semantic casualty ending in “ism” is provided with a link on WordNavigator . Click on the following link (WordNavigator ) to obtain the entire list with each individual link. 1675 words found. A very short sample :