Saturday, 26 July 2008

Lactavist/Lactivist

Daily Mail July 2012
Spelling is what you make it.

When it first occurred to someone to put "L" in front of "activist", to create a word that suggests you are campaigning actively for lactation issues... it must have seemed a stroke of genuis!

Which, I think, it was. L-activist.

However, we 'lactate'. Not 'lactite'.

So I use 'lactavist'. Lactation.

So do others. Sometimes, is seems like we're all making a spelling mistake. Sometimes, it seems like we're on a more authentic pathway, linguistically. Lactation Activist.

It's something I've mused on often, as being dyslexic, I have to pay attention. And I have, before now, gone back and rooted out all "lactavist"s in my writing, and replaced them with "lactivist".

No more. This is the Freedom For Lactavist post.

We are active about lactation. We can be lactavists. Use it enough, it will be listed in the dictionary as an alternate spelling.

Are you listening OED?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Just heard you on Radio 4 - brava!