Business Grammar: What's Wrong with Mainstreamification?
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
This one paragraph contains a business grammar error. Find and correct it.
Social media is here to stay. No longer is the support for this coming only from techies, teens, and social media consultants. Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week and the NY Times even concur that in 2012, the mainstreamification of social media in business became official.
Correction:
Social media is here to stay. No longer is the support for this coming only from techies, teens, and social media consultants. Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week and the NY Times even concur that in 2012, the mainstreamification of social media in business became official.
This is an example of creating a horrible, non-existent verb from a useful, actual noun or adjective. "Verbifying" a noun commonly leads to awkward business-speak and jargon. Better is:
Social media is here to stay. No longer is the support for this coming only from techies, teens, and social media consultants. Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week and the NY Times even concur that in 2012, social media became mainstream.
Solution:
Do not create awkward verbs from nouns or adjectives.
Mainstream can be either a noun, adjective, and even a verb depending on its use in a sentence. Dictionary.com clarifies this. Use mainstream, not mainstreamification. Read more about Avoiding Silly Verbs Morphed from Useful Nouns.
