Trip to my Local Library

I made a trip to my local library to check out some hard copy dictionaries. I reviewed many of thise available and was able to find some references to commonize. Not the references I was looking for though.

• American Heritage College Dictionary - 2002 [no reference]


• Webster II - New College Dictionary - 2005 [no reference]


• New Oxford American Dictionary - 2005 [ no reference]

World Book Dictionary, 2007, 2 volume set

Commonize - make common or vulgar

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd. Edition, 20 volume set, 1989, Claredon Press

Commonize:

1. To combine 'commons', so as to form a joint meal.

Yesterday I commonized with my roommate for breakfast, each man having his 'commons' put into a shared stock.

2. To make common or vulgar

There has been a movement to commonize with more affordable linoneum versus
the more expensive marble.

3. The process by which common or generic nouns are derived from proper names.

The Kleenex name has been commonized for facial tissue.

Automotive Design & Production - Citation

A search of the on-line automotive publication Automotive Design & Production returns (11) matches. Articles from as early as 1999


WIP - Volvo's Plug-and-play AWD - 03/05
The automaker is able to commonize hardware by programming the AWD control module to recognize which vehicle it is being assembled to and adjust its software accordingly.

Feature Article - Plastics: The Applications Evolve - 03/99
Just as automakers are looking to commonize on fewer suppliers because of the efficiencies that can be thereby gained, they are also looking to reduce the variety of plastics that they are employing in their production.

Automotive Digest - Citation

Automotive Digest has referenced a 2003 GM Story about Commonization efforts. They printed the word in quotes, thus recognizing its mis-spelling.

• Results a testament to GM's efforts to install systems to catch and repair problems
• Most prominent is GM's move to "commonize" manufacturing
• A 2% decline in quality between last year and 1st year of a vehicle's production
• A 17% improvement in 1st year after production started for new vehicle
• Adoption of manufacturing practices of Toyota contributed to GM's positive showings

NASA - Citation

There seems to be a common thread of technical references to the usage of Commonize. A search of the NASA web site shows a references.

NASA Workstation Management Guide, (pdf file created 1997)

Windows95 has been identified as the primary goal focus for this effort. In this case, the upgrade to Windows 95 presents a significant opportunity to commonize/standardize configurations and interfaces across NASA.

Some More U.S. Patents

A search of the US Patent web site, lists (65) patents with the word Commonize. References from as early 1992. Try a search at the following web site. Below I listed (10) entries.

US Patent Search Tool

7,500,271 Reproducing apparatus and information distribution system
7,494,931 Method for fabricating semiconductor device and polishing method
7,467,171 Digital filter device
7,437,737 Method for commonly controlling device drivers
7,408,218 Semiconductor device having plural dram memory cells and a logic circuit
7,355,742 Apparatus and method for controlling page break position
7,329,159 Seamed pin for crimping and welding as used in a fluorescent lamp
7,322,756 Coating and developing apparatus and coating and developing method
7,260,510 Simulation model creation method and system, and storage medium
7,240,002 Speech recognition apparatus

U.S. Patent # 7,216,879 - Citation

Hey, The US Patent office recognizes the word Commonize. Maybe I am on to something.

Patent 7,216,879 states the following in its Abstract:

Common vehicle attachment points on the knuckles are then calculated for the vehicle. Several iterations of the above design process may take place to commonize the suspension for a particular vehicle or across particular vehicle lines.

Ward's Auto World - Citation

One of the Automotive Industrial magazine I read is Ward's" Auto World. Over the years, I have come across the word "Commonize" in some of their articles. Let's see if I can find any references.

A search of Ward's data, resulted in 127 hits. Wow. Here are a few references from as early as 1995.

Shedding the blues
Winter, DrewWard's
AutoWorld, Mar 1, 1995 12:00 PM

* Taken individually, cost-cutting concepts such as commonizing components, holding down staff sizes, squeezing supplier margins, hiring contract engineers and globally sourcing components - and many others - aren't viewed all that negatively. But put them all together and a high percentage of engineers are worried that these converging factors will hurt engineering quality - at least somewhat. Only 37% of OEMs and 31% of suppliers agree with one OEM engineer who says that "efficiencies can be achieved without any quality impact." Instead, most echo an engineering supervisor at Ford who complains: "So much more is being done with so much less in record time, quality has to suffer."

Inside GM Purchasing: sorting out the winners and losers
Smith, David C.
Ward's AutoWorld, Mar 1, 1995 12:00 PM

Buyer Horatio Seeley credits his conveyor creativity team with the idea of commonizing all paint-shop conveyor systems. This costbook for the particular system he's buying, to be used for a 1997 model, is $13-million-plus, but his final price comes in $1,569,000 under that. He also reports an $852,635 savings on a conveyor conversion carrying a $12.4 million bogie.

How does a new word get added to the Dictionary?

Thank you Yahoo Answers and Philip for answering my Question.

It is not just about "creating" a new word. It is not just about suggesting a word to Webster or Oxford. It is about acceptance by the english speaking world. Are people using your new word?

According to Merriam-Webster:

To decide which words to include in the dictionary and to determine what they mean, Merriam-Webster editors study the language as it's used. They carefully monitor which words people use most often and how they use them.

Each day most Merriam-Webster editors devote an hour or two to reading a cross section of published material, including books, newspapers, magazines, and electronic publications; in our office this activity is called "reading and marking." The editors scour the texts in search of new words, new usages of existing words, variant spellings, and inflected forms—in short, anything that might help in deciding if a word belongs in the dictionary, understanding what it means, and determining typical usage. Any word of interest is marked, along with surrounding context that offers insight into its form and use.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

Imagine that are reading your favourite newspaper over breakfast. The news column tells you that new "e-tailers" have underestimated the time it takes to build a loyal customer base. You discover that the term is an abbreviation of "electronic retailer".

It is very likely that this word will have been picked up by the OED's Reading Programme, a large ongoing project employing around fifty readers. All types of contemporary printed material are looked at - novels, television scripts, song lyrics, and so on, as well as newspapers and magazines - and searched for entirely new words, or interesting new uses of existing words. The findings of the Reading Programme are stored in a vast searchable electronic database of quotation material called 'Incomings'.

In one of my regular analyses of the Incomings database, I see that "e-tailer" has appeared several times in recent publications. I note the word for further investigation, and perhaps for eventual inclusion in the Dictionary.

So, it looks like if I want to get this word considered, I need to find evidence of its usage. I am getting somewhere now....

An on-line dictionary search

On my quest to find a dictionary that recognizes "commonize", I searched a few on-line dictionaries. There sure are a lot of "dictionaries" on the internet. Below is the results of those searches:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/commonize
No results found for commonize:
-----------------------
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/commonize
Sorry, this definition page is not yet loaded. Based on your search, we are increasing the priority for commonize and will race to post it for you if we have it on file.

-----------------------
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commonize
Main Entry: commonize
commonize can be found at Merriam-WebsterUnabridged.com. Click here to start your free trial! Click here to search for another word in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Hey, maybe I have something here...
Not. I don't think so, I am not applying for access at $29.95 annual rate, to see if my word in is their book.

-----------------------

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=commonize&x=61&y=8

Results for commonize
commonize was not found in the Cambridge Advanced
Learner's Dictionary Did you spell it correctly?>

----------------------

Okay, so no luck with these on-line sources. Got to
look elsewhere.

How this started?

Early in my career at Ford (sometime around 1993), I had an assignment to create a manual of procedures for my department. The assignment took a few months to complete.

My first step was to collect all the different precedures that were being used, and to "commonize" these across all the groups. But here was my first problem...

The word "commonize" was not accepted by Word Perfect's spell checker. What? I then found a paperback dictionary from a fellow employee. It wasn't there either. How could this be? It had to be a word. It described exactly what I was doing. "Commonizing" the procedures across our department.

Since that point in time, I have seen this word being used in different publications, different articles, etc. How did they get away with it, when my spell checker would not accept it? If they were using it, I am sure that they had a good reason to.

I am now on a quest to get this word accepted into the English Dictionary. To offer it up to others who are looking to use "Commonize". I can't wait to see where this leads me.