Nation of Enablers

Health care reform is still a fount of questions, some truly askable, some rather unlistenable. Is the bill a yesable proposition or at least a testable one? Do some states have the right to make certain points editable and thus more favorable for them? Are some passages earmarkable or accessorizable - with some pork of all things? Opponents find the bill gapable and now brood over details that may be challengable to make the entire bill disassemblable. It’s all an only too relatable experience for many who remember other upsettable attempts to reform health care.

Meanwhile, Mississippi has taken an approach as warrantable as it is applaudable. Mississippi lawmakers, however, focus on the edible part of health care rather than on the editable. Usually not easily alarmable, they decided to do something about the state’s obesity rate of 32.8%. In a truly astonishable and bipartisan competition, they try to lose as many pounds as sheddable of their combined surplus fat. One Democrat who “started at ‘well over 300 pounds,’ though he declined to give a specific number, has dropped 73 pounds – about one-fifth of his entire weight.” It is easily decodable that he started at 365 pounds and thus is still unyiffably (sexually unattractive) close to his starting weight although he claims that his daughter finds him “getting sexier by the day.”

Foreseeably enough, Mississippi lawmakers are not chargeable for their fitness program. “Corporate sponsors are picking up the tab,” which is acceptable according to the state’s ethic rules.

Participants even have changed their eating habits, finding out that chicken is not only fryable but also grillable, that vegetables are metabolizable and that desserts are avertable. The prize for the winner of the contest is indeed covetable: a marble trophy in the shape of the state of Mississippi ("Fighting fat in the land of sweet tea, fried food").


“Yes. We can.” Ergo, new adjectives mushroom, using the suffix –able to indicate that something can be done. In most cases these coinages are not only awkward but also unnecessary: Questions that are askable are simply truly worth asking; those that are unlistenable are probably off the mark; editable passages are open to revision; accessorizable items can be amended; one may brood over how to challenge certain details; and many who remember other failed attempts can relate to this experience; etc.
Most of the adjectives used in the above passage can be found on a long list of more or less usable adjectives with the suffix –able.

-able (adjective suffix, usually in a passive sense
1. indicating possibility
movable: something is possible to be moved
salable: something can be sold
2. indicating obligation
payable: something must be payed
taxable: something must be taxed
3. indicating accordance
fashionable: in accordance with fashion
4. expressing capacity or worthiness
honorable: something is worth to be honored
• -ible is used with words derived from Latin and sometimes with words whose root ends in a soft c or g: tangible from tangere = to touch.
• When adjectives derive from verbs that require a preposition, the preposition is dropped: reliable (somebody who can be “relied on”)
• Adjectives derived from verbs ending in unstressed -ate drop this suffix: communicate → communicable