I have just spotted the word 'complexification' in a piece of literary criticism. Anybody who can explain why 'complication' was not good enough can have a gold star.

Hahaha how ironic! The word is a 'complexification' of itself!!!

What's wrong with good old "complexerisation"!

Ha ha.. you're just conflicatering matters now.

Seriously, the sooner that sort of critic disappears the better!

Not to spoil the fun but complexification and complication are two different things... complexification is the process of something becoming more complex; complication is less specific in this regard - it does not emphasise the complexity, more the simply problematic

Sleepyhead's right.

Complication refers to a single event, complexification is a process. So, if something was becoming complicated it would undergoing a process of complexification. :)

======= Date Modified 18 Jul 2009 19:45:27 =======
But, but...the dictionary definition of the word 'complicate' is 'to make COMPLEX, involved or difficult' !
And complicate has the same etymological root as 'complex'. It comes from the idea of folding, or plaiting.


I'm witholding my gold stars!

At the risk of committing a metadiscursive utterance of the bleedin' obvious, might I venture the interpretative metahypothesis that the pseudo-contentular vacuosity of the author's textual-critical verbularisations might have been rendered nonobfuscatedly reader-perceptible if he'd written in plain English?

This, is precisely, the language of academese! Magictime, you've made me laugh at the end of a boring day :-) Well expressed!

======= Date Modified 19 Jul 2009 01:46:17 =======

======= Date Modified 19 Jul 2009 02:12:27 =======
Again though, the first dictionary definition of 'complication' is 'the act of complicating'. And to complicate means to make complex. So the process of complicating something (making it complex) is 'complication' not 'complexificying'. I see what you mean about the difference between an act and a process...But you could just say 'a process of complication'. Means exactly the same thing and people might understand what you're trying to say. Which surely is the whole point of writing a book. No?



Magictime summed the whole sorry business up anyway. The gold stars are going to the back of a dusty drawer, along with the stupid COMPLICATED book.

In the sciences/math, obviously the word means to produce a 'complex', i.e. where 'complex' is a noun, not an adjective..

That set aside, I think, when you use it as a *verb* to say (A) "he is complicating the topic", and (B) "he is complexifying the topic", the difference may perhaps be negligible, unless you mean that in the case of (A) it is a largely negative connotation, i.e he is just making things look difficult and in the case of (B) he is adding layers of sophisticated arguments to explain how things are not as simple as they look.

So, an argument that goes "hey ,if you want to got to the party, first find a blue dress, and even with a blue dress you need a headband with tiger paws printed on it, and then you need to sub bathe for 15 hours 65 mins before you go" could be taking as complicating matters..

But, an argument that says "geopolitics in this part of the world must be accounted for/analysed with the help of a multiple contributing factors. For one, one must keep in mind the treaty of XYZ, another thing is the theory of ABC"...this could be a case where the author has added complexity (complexity not as a negative word but as a word to mean more analytical layers) to the argument and hence 'complexified' the situation. Obviously in this case you cant say he has complicated the situation.


That could be one potential way of using the terms differently, not the only way, or the definitive way, but just one possible way

sounds like bullshitification to me !

Nope I completely agree with 'Bug - and am also a bit worried that PhD students don't seem to perceive the difference between something that is complicated and something complex... there are, as with most things, different levels of problem (as Bug tried to explain)' 'complex' being more so than complicated...

And OP, I think you need to get a new, more comprehensive dictionary.