Increasements

So I was reading Dad Gone Mad today, about the guy who had said the word "agreeance" (as a noun), and it made me flash back nine years ago, when I was the art director at Hyperbole Studios. We were watching a demo video of the new version of Max (a 3D modeling and animation software tool), and the "trainer" in the video mentioned how they had made some increasements to the whatever.

Increasements.

It stuck with me. Being the son of an English major and the grandson of three public school educators, I was genetically predisposed to develop a prehensile red pencil appendage, which got a lot of use throughout school (and more so in the workaday world). As time goes on and accepted conversational English becomes lazier and lazier, "words" like increasements and agreeance become accepted. I get that. Popular use often overrules correct grammar. But common does not always equal right. In fact, it can be argued, rarely so. And even though some words may technically be actual forms we might find in the dictionary, many of them sound lazily constructed, and really don't need to replace more functional forms. Agreeance? Agreement. Increasement? No no. Increase will suffice, as it can be used as a noun.

Anyway, DGM's post made me remember increasements, and all the fun I had ridiculing it in the years that followed. A special form of ridicule I save for people who use the words synnergize, irregardless and orientated...

...and agreeance.