I came across a new’ish word over the weekend: Blursday. I had to look it up – a noun, it’s “a day not easily distinguished from other days, or the phenomenon of days running together”. It was birthed during the Covid lockdowns. Example: “Lockdowns had us living in Blursday; one day felt exactly like the next.”
It triggered a thought and so I looked it up: About 800 to 1000 words are added to dictionaries each year!
It got me thinking further: If new words are added each year, are there any “old” words that are deleted/retired? Turns out, it doesn’t work like that. “Old” words don’t die, they just spend a very long time fading away.
Bear with me here. But what if we could?
What if for the sake of improving the human condition, we could delete a word a year?
Besides the obvious ones like war, evil, violence, etc., what word would you delete and why? And what word would you replace it with?
As an executive coach, the word I’d delete would be “PERFECTION”.
I’ve seen so many clients be stressed out by not achieving a self-imposed standard of perfection.
I’ve also seen many other clients not try/start a new chapter/adventure/job etc, because they feared not being able achieve again a self-imposed standard of perfection.
What word would I replace it with? My vote: “MOMENTUM”.
With the support of the Japanese notion of Kaizen, Warren Buffet’s worship of the compound interest and James Clear’s (author “Atomic Habits”) advocacy of small habits over long periods leading to big strides forward, I hereby proclaim: