Have you ever heard the word inventoritis? The first time I heard it from one of my friends, I cant help but think of etymology. I love knowing the origins of words. When I was younger, I used to have a pocketbook of etymology. According to Online Etymology Dictionary, Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago. My memory is still fresh remembering ingress (c.1420, from L. ingressus "entrance," from pp. stem of ingredi "to step into, enter) vs. digress and vicarious (adj 1: experienced at secondhand; "read about mountain climbing and felt vicarious excitement"). Therefore, when this friend of mine asked me about the word inventoritis, what automatically my brain told me was the etymology of itis which is noun suffix denoting diseases characterized by inflammation, Mod.L., from Gk. -itis, fem. of adj. suffix -ites "pertaining to." Fem. because it was used with fem. noun nosos "disease," e.g. Gk. arthritis (nosos) "(disease) of the joints." Who would have ever thought then that the word Inventoritis will be in the field of marketing?!?

A well known product marketing company here in Vancouver took the plunge and unfold the mystery of this word Inventoritisand created some working processes around it. If you go to a search engine, wikipedia (whats the etymology of this please?) Have these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Money_Vanishes

http://www.squidoo.com/terribleproducts

Just typing the last website, where does this squidoo word come from?!? Oh well, arent you amazed because its not only how technology is fast evolving but the arena of language has changed a whole lot with the way people communicate.

As an immigrant, I was surprised that some of my English words arent the way its being used in my new country. I used to be so adept at words I thought are applicable here. Someone heard me say A penny for your thought and told me I was watching old movies! I didnt even know what movie hes referring to. Anyway, as Canadians would say, Do you understand that, eh?

Lastly, just in case you didnt have the time to look at the links, heres what Inventoritis means:

A concept pioneered by Peter P. Roosen and Tatsuya Nakagawa, and relates to any of a group of disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, paranoia, delusions and hallucinations accompanied in many cases by a portfolio containing granted patent applications and other forms of intellectual property including trade secrets. Inventoritis is associated with depressed or non-existent product sales and defects in product marketing programs and is caused by excessive reliance on the assumed idea that ones product or idea is an excellent one.