Barbara Wallraff is a writer and editor in Cambridge. She writes The Wordshop on Substack.
Last time, we sought a word for “a longstanding software app’s update that rearranges everyday icons and functions and adds new features that clutter the screen to no discernible benefit.”
Readers who work in tech were all too familiar with this problem. Ed Lyons, of Swampscott, wrote: “I am a software developer who has seen this lots of times. My idea for that unwise software update is reclutter.” Michael Bohnen, of Newton, proposed clutterware and also inapposite.
David Mahoney, of Westford, declared: “I am about to revert to a prior version on my iPhone because the latest version reduced the size of the keys such that I am now making twice as many typing errors.
“I’ve spent my career in computer technology,” he went on, “and in the early days, discussion of technology used to be called technobabble. I suggest we update that term and call these ‘enhancements’ technoscrabble: End users find it impossible to piece ‘features’ together to produce a useful result.”
And Jerry Baum, of Burlington, had this to say: “When I was in the workforce and an IT person would tell me a software upgrade/update was going to be installed, my cynical response was that every upgrade is actually a downgrade. With that in mind, for the current week’s word challenge I’d like to offer upside-downgrade.”
Readers who didn’t report working in tech are no strangers to this problem either. Marc McGarry, of Newton, proposed upgrate, “update + grate (on your nerves)” and apphazard, “app + haphazard,” adding “I realize the fact that hazard also means something risky is a problem here.”
Well, no, Marc. Neither I nor Naomi Angoff Chedd, of Brookline, think the hazard connotation is a problem at all. Naomi wrote: “You mean those updates performed by the technowrecking crew? Then it takes twice as long to find everything you had at your fingertips yesterday? After I reluctantly agreed to one of those ‘helpful’ updates, my phone promptly displayed my schedule. For 2023. This is progress? Arrest them for breaking and entering!”
Larry Kerpelman, of Acton, felt similarly, writing: “That app update that turns everything upsy-daisy on your computer with no discernible benefit could be called an upsetdatey or an oopsadatey or even an oppositedatey.”
Jim Dexter, of Methuen, proposed app-sy-daisy.
If you don’t know what the World War II-era acronym snafu stands for, the variant that Susan Rose, of Waltham, came up with will give you a hint. She wrote: “I loath updates over which I have no control or discretion — or even a vote. I would describe this as a snappfu, because when these updates happen, the Situation is definitely Normal, because my APP is all [Expletive] Up.”
Christopher Osborne, of Cambridge, is yet another update hater. “OMG: This is in the top 10 of my pet peeves,” he wrote. “How did the designers at Gmail not know that changing a function activated by one click to one requiring two clicks did not make it ‘easier’? Why did One Password decide not to put my registered credit card into the tab ‘Account’ but somewhere so illogical that I never remember where it is? Nonintuitive improvements might be called nonintuitivimprovements, or since these things are rarely an improvement, they could be disimprovements.”
I had thought disimprovement was coined in the tech era and therefore was particularly apposite, but the Oxford English Dictionary disabused me by presenting citations for it from as long ago as 1649. Come to think of it, haven’t disimprovements of one kind or another been happening forever?
Leslie Mitchell, of Plymouth, wrote: “Not sure if our suggestions need to be made-up words, but enshittification seems very appropriate!” This one actually was coined, or at least popularized, in the tech era.
Merriam-Webster has the word on its “slang and trending” list, where it’s defined like this: “when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits.” A 2022 blog post by the Canadian writer Cory Doctorow is thought to be the word’s first public appearance.
Ken Pogran, of Lexington, suggested disrupdate, which he defined as follows: “a software update that trashes the application environment you’ve so carefully set up and are used to, making it hard to get anything done using the app until you’ve figured out all the changes in functionality and so on and have gotten it all straightened out and set up properly again.”
Yes! This one is simple to understand and to pronounce, no one will find it vulgar, and it describes exactly what we’re looking for. Ken Pogran wins bragging rights – well done, Ken!
Now Larry Maver, of Gloucester, writes: “Pickleball’s Achilles’ heel is the constant noise from the hard Wiffle-like ball bouncing off the hard paddles, not to mention the groans and screams of the players. For a while now, I have described the sport’s noise problem as very ‘annoising.’ Thought perhaps you’d want to have a challenge to describe living next to pickleball courts.”
Perhaps I would! Send your ideas for Larry’s word to me at Barbara.Wallraff@globe.com by noon on Friday, May 22, and kindly tell me where you live. Responses may be edited. And please keep in mind that meanings in search of words are always welcome.