I was editing an article for the upcoming issue of University of Edinburgh’s Science magazine, called EUSci .I started writing and editing for them sometime last year and I am greatly enjoying the process. So today…I was reading a super interesting article and as I read the word theoreticize, I got sucked into it.
And suddenly I felt like what Niall would when he must come across bizzare things himself. For those who don’t know him, please visit his site at English Language Thoughts . His is a blog I greatly enjoy reading…he’s got the greatest collection of bizzare usages and clarifications on what’s right and what isn’t.
Anyway…so for a few minutes I felt like Niall would. So I stopped editing and started my searches on Google. To me…I would use ‘theorise’. That sounds normal to my ears when I say it out loud. But who knows! Maybe I’m just ignorant and my life has been a lie so far! Maybe it is a British vs American English sort of situation. So Google was the way forward.
While I found no dictionary with the work theoreticize in it…I found it on Wikipedia. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say….
Verb[edit]
theoreticize (third-person singular simple present theoreticizes, present participle theoreticizing, simple past and past participle theoreticized)
- Synonym of theoretize (“form a theoretical model of”)
- (rare) To make (something) theoretical, to treat (something) as if it were (merely) theoretical.
Uhh….ok! But it must exist in a dictionary if it is a word! Cambridge, Oxford and Merriam Webster dictionaries say it isn’t a word…theorise, on the other hand, is a word. And here’s what Cambridge dictionary has to say….
theorizeverb [ I ]
uk usually theorise UK /ˈθɪə.raɪz/ US /ˈθɪr.aɪz/
aishwaryasivakumar 
Really interesting! I’d never heard of theoreticize before, but looking at the meaning it makes sense. I imagine theorize is much more common for most people though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s what I would’ve thought too! Except…this girl surprised me…and i asked people around before jumping to Google because I wondered what others commonly used and it was sort of 50-50! And it felt great being in your mind space with words and usage and all that… 🙂
Thank you for stopping by Niall! I really appreciate it 🙂
LikeLike