17. "Womanizer"

The coinage "womanizer" has been used to describe a lot of famous men— Casanova, John F. Kennedy, Mike Tyson — but what does it , the word itself, tell us they did? Say I come across it knowing only the words it is analogous to, the verbs made by adding "ize" to a noun.

All right, here's Mike Tyson. Could he have made a woman, as "deputize" makes a deputy? No. Given her the qualities of a woman, as "modernize" gives old things modern qualities? No. Maybe made her more woman-like, as "brutalize" makes somebody more brute-like? Highly unlikely. I'm getting no place and the fact is that no matter how far down the list I go I'll never get anyplace. This is an "ize" word like none other in the language.

Go ten words down the list and you see it. The suffix "ize" says, "Change into the condition the root noun names." It can make a non-colony into a colony (colonize), a non-criminal into a criminal (criminalize), and a non-magnet into a magnet (magnetize). That and a hundred other things can be done with "ize." What can't be done is make a woman into a woman. That's already been done to her, at birth. The principle governing the whole operation has been violated.

Well, we return to the world of experience, look at Tyson, and see what the coiner of "womanizer" really wanted to say about him. He's a woman-enjoyer. So were they all. That odd use of "ize" just confused us for a while.

Confuse a reader, though, and it's hard to say where his mind is going to go. Readers keep trying to fit new meanings into the old forms. Here actor, receiver of the action, who's doing what to whom, get all mixed up.  I, strangely, on the analogy of "simonize," began to see women as car wax. I had Tyson smearing himself with them, rubbing them into his body. A writer or coiner might want me to see that, and there is, I'll admit, a kick in it, but the kick comes at the price of great confusion, and damage to respect for the logic built into our language.