"EXTRAORDINARY"

The English language is a marvelous vehicle for expression. Its massive vocabulary exceeds all other languages in no small part because of the immense volume of technical terms which have originated in the English speaking world. It is worth remembering the number of nations, such as Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, have enriched the vocabulary. Immigrants to these nations added their own thinly disguised words to the English lexicon.

Also, the English speaking world has never guarded the language. As is all too obvious in modern times new words gush out with only the mildest and ineffective protests from purists. Restrictions on other languages, much like the restriction to enforce Ciceronian Latin, prevail in some fashion. The French Academy, for instance, has guarded against the taint of foreign contamination in any form since the time of Richelieu in the early seventeenth century.

We understand that idiomatic expressions defy sense, logic or other linguistic forensic analysis. We do not, however, regard the word “extraordinary” as idiomatic. We also firmly grasp “ordinary” to mean simple, plain, mundane or other expressions of mediocrity. In an almost Platonic way the English language is rich with nuisance to express degrees of lesser or greater. The prefix “extra” almost always is a superlative that elevates something to a higher level. If this is true, should not “extraordinary” convey the impression that something “extraordinary” would describe something contemptibly low.