Every time I use "optimific" in a sentence, somebody snickers. When I ask why, they tell me that I made the word up. Sometimes they are more unsure, and just wonder if I made it up, other times, as did Mark Olsen, they just flat out accuse me of a Bushism. But these people are wrong. Optimific is a word. It's used by utilitarianism, and refers to an act which produces the absolute best possible total consequences. Run a google search--it's there.
While it's true that, when pressed, I can't find a real difference between "optimific" and "optimal," except that the former is more philosophical-sounding, the redundancy is hardly my fault. And to all of you who laughed at my "misnomer," bow your heads in shame.
That is all.
PS: It would be more ironic that Blogger spellcheck doesn't recognize "optimific" if it didn't also not recognize "blogger."
In my defense, I did try to look it up. You ought to take it up with Google. "define: optimific" showed no matches with online dictionaries.
ReplyDeleteSee here
Oh, and when I wrote that optimific "might be a Bushism", I had hoped that you might read that with a grin, as that was the intent. I suppose I should have tacked in a ;) but those are hard get to look good when put in parenthetical remarks (all those parenthesis).
ReplyDeleteOh don't get me wrong; I grinned. But my use of "optimific" is now a running joke on the Carleton debate team, making you about the 15th person to mock me for using it. It was time to take a stand for this oft-maligned and unfaily denegrated word.
ReplyDeleteAs a graduate student, in Engineering Management, I can attest that not only is optimific a word it is often used in conjunction with satisficing (as close as you can get to your objectives.) Both of these words live in the realm of decision science.
ReplyDeleteOptimific is in the Oxford English Dictionary, defined as "producing the best consequences"
ReplyDeleteyeah well denegrated doesn't show up on any web dictionaries either
ReplyDeletethat's because it's spelled 'denigrate'
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the word 'optimific' and others like it first existed because someone accidentally wrote it and no one ever corrected them- they just let it be and it made its way into some jargons.
I ran into this word while reading European writers for college. When I googled it, you were the first result. Thanks for the definition!
ReplyDeleteOptimific is definitely a word... or at least it's used by published scholars and philosophers. Here I am, reading J.J.C. Smart's piece on 'extreme and restricted utilitarianism,' trying to figure out what the balls "optimifically" means and my google search dragged me to your page.
ReplyDeleteSo good work!
Well, I've seen 'denigrate' spelled both ways, and results come up if you search either on Google. I do think it's spelled with an 'i', officially. Whatever that means. As to the validity of the word optimific, anyone who's taken a philosophy 101 class has heard it. It's mildly unsettling that people on a debate team are ignorant of the word.
ReplyDeleteI believe you. It is used in Bernard Williams' 'Utilitarianism and Integrity'..Thank you for informing me of what it means!!
ReplyDeleteWhile it's true that, when pressed, I can't find a real difference between "optimific" and "optimal"
ReplyDeleteI think I can -- murdering an innocent person for no good reason by shooting them in the head may be the "optimal" way to kill them quickly (assuming that's what you were trying to do), but it's in no danger of being "optimific", because (we presume) the total global consequences are being affected negatively, not positively. Does that make sense?
Somewhere I came across an explanation of the difference between 'optimific' and 'optimal' that makes sense to me and that I try to stick to. 'Optimific' describes the thing that produces the best outcome. 'Optimal' describes the best outcome itself. So you could say that the optimific action results in the optimal state of affairs.
ReplyDelete