Why "woke" is not a Good Word

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Dr. Goodword
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Why "woke" is not a Good Word

Postby Dr. Goodword » Fri Oct 14, 2022 2:21 pm

Woke is the past tense of wake and English grammar does not allow the past tense of verbs to be used as adjectives. Whoever came up with it probably were misled by the accidental identity of the past tense and past participle in English, e.g. 'he bored me' : 'I have been bored'. That isn't the case with wake.

Participles, present and past, are used as adjectives all the time, e.g. 'a boring book' and 'a bored look'. Since wake has both these participles, waking and woken, why not use one of these?

Well, the obvious reason is that whoever came up with woke was looking for a word for wokeness to which they could assign negative connotations since being awake to things around us is generally considered positive throughout the English-speaking world.
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Re: Why "woke" is not a Good Word

Postby Audiendus » Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:07 pm

Woke is the past tense of wake and English grammar does not allow the past tense of verbs to be used as adjectives.
What about broke and bespoke?

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Re: Why "woke" is not a Good Word

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Oct 15, 2022 9:40 am

I would consider these exceptions and would not like to add to that rather messy crew.

I can see why bespoke stuck in the language. It is a beautiful word and, since it refers to tailored clothing, rather fits is reference. Woke is not so ugly as its reference hence doesn't fit as well.
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