Just as fashion in all of culture, language is subject to fads and faddish uses of words. As with all such phenomena, they are often short-lived (pronounced [ʃɔrtlʌɪvd]).

A recent word in American English that has become faddish is negative instead of the traditional minus to designate the temperature below zero degrees. Why this has happened has mainly to do with the powerful tendency in contemporary American speech toward hypertrophy. The faddish word has three syllables, whereas the traditional one has two. Also, negative sounds more “scientific,” which is license enough for many contemporary speakers, who elevate science to a religion. One can only hope that this faddish usage will go the way of all such fashions.

MICHAEL SHAPIRO