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Going from
the defective
to the fective

I was reading a book recently in which one of the characters was "decapitated" (just a little light summer reading), and it occurred to me that in order to for one to be decapitated, one must first be capitated. And yet, you never see the perfectly good root word of decapitated -- capitated -- used regularly, as in, "He was a finely capitated young man up until he called Napoleon a girly-man."

I suppose we don't employ the word "capitate" to describe people because if they are living beings, we assume they have a good head on their shoulders, or at least a workable one. Likewise, we don't use the opposite of decapitate -- recapitate -- mainly because medical science has not made strides enough for that operation to be successful. In the distant future, I predict there will be as many recapitated people as there are people today with new livers.

But the whole decapitation thing got me thinking of what a debacle the English language is when it should be a bacle. I'm assuming that if debacle means "a big mess" than bacle must mean everything is just fine. ("The meeting was a bacle, everyone working quietly and well together.")

Why, in literature, are people often debased, defiled and debauched but seldom based, filed or bauched. I live in a constant state of bauch and am proud of it.

Why is an electrical gadget often defective but never fective? I have many fective appliances in my house, but they seldom get credit for it.

People often deplane or detrain but never plane or train. Instead they get "on" a train or "on" a plane when clearly it would be safer if they went inside the things.

We deduce, declare and decline but never duce, clare or cline. Why? I'm sure that when Sherlock Holmes wasn't deducing something, he was just generally ducing. And if you don't decline something, are you, by definition, clining it?

Why do you accuse someone of deceiving you yet you never give them credit when they ceive?

You hear about armies being deployed or even redeployed but you don't hear about when they simply ployed, or sit around waiting to go somewhere.

Often things that are "de'd" become "re'd," but not all the time.

Declassified papers become reclassified, and when we are dehydrated we can be rehydrated. But why do we refer to it as "detox" when someone undergoes drug treatment but not "retox" when he falls off the wagon? And why are buildings demolished but not remolished when they are rebuilt? Terrorists demolished the Twin Towers, and we are still talking about how to remolish them.

Do you have to be pressed before you become depressed and praved before you become depraved? And for all the deprived children in the world, aren't there many more who are gleefully prived?

I hate to denounce our native tongue, but I think it has been nounced long enough. I'm defiant about this issue today where yesterday I was demurely fiant. And before I was demure, I was merely mure, a state of modesty so unassuming I decline to discuss it further.

What I cline to discuss is the decay of our language. The de-word decay must stop. It must be cayed or even recayed. That I solemnly declare, or at least demurely clare.