Gainification …

Gainification …. Karl Polanyi stated on page 30 in his book on the great transformation:

‘Nineteenth century civilization alone was economic in a different and distinctive sense, for it chose to base itself on a motive only rarely acknowledged as valid in the history of human societies, and certainly never before raised to the level of a justification of action and behavior in everyday life, namely, gain. The self-regulating market system was uniquely derived from this principle.’

But should not computer spell checks acknowledge this historical fact – or to be more concise: Should not English language be sufficiently wise to accept the term of

Gainification

Sure, there is the warning – but should we allow Shakespeare’s Timon allow to prevail?

Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair, Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant. Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this Will lug your priests and servants from your sides, Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed, Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put’st odds Among the route of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature.

Are such statements sufficient reason for standing in the way of innovating language, innovated and then allowing us to find the right name for the wrong thing?

——

Polanyi, Karl, 1944: The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time; Boston: Beacon Press, 1957