Archive: Arts & Entertainment

SMART TALK

by Dr. Amelia Raitt Payne, M.D.



INNERACTIVE: As staff physician at the Center for English as a First Language, I often hear words mangled in a way that makes them sound medical. The words often have the prefix inter-.

For example, Internet. I'm told by the linguistic therapists that Internet still has a capital I, but I can't see that continuing much longer. Time was, linoleum always had a capital L.

More important (not importantly), Internet is often pronounced innernet. Please get this straight: If innernet were an official word, it would mean your brain. Don't try to tell me your innernet has several thousand videos of cats playing the piano. I'll be tempted to admit you for psychiatric evaluation.

And inneractive. Oy. Tums are inneractive. So are flu shots. [Dr. Weiss N. Heimer, you still need yours!] Linked text and touch screens are interactive. There's a difference.

My friend, Father Peter Holdoff, has a lovely word for the exclusive, unwelcoming, even hateful language used by some ultraconservative religious groups: innerdenominational.

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