It was only added to the OED in 2018 after being misused in tech for fifteen or so years.

Originally a performant was someone who'd performed in something (similar to combatant).

Unfortunately it stuck.

Why is it unfortunate? The English language is built on an endless supply these mutations.

Just taste really, it sounds wrong to me.

On the scale of new words I dislike, it's nothing compared to how football pundits describe players as 'unplayable' when they're on form.

On a scale of new words I dislike, it's actually more annoying to me than "revert back" meaning "get back to you on that", which has a wry charm.

Mind you, I am still annoyed by people saying "addicting" when they actually mean "addictive", or "concerning" when they mean "a cause for concern".

So I'm really not a good judge. But it still has to go in the circular filing cabinet.

If we were better at keeping -ive suffixed words, we could have had concernive instead to shorten that phrase without misusing -ing. :)

Now you're just trying to upset me. ;-)

Greetings, fellow curmudgeons!

Surely the worst word to come out of sports pundits is "winningest"

Words are only ever added to the OED after a period of use.

Before performant made it into the OED as an adjective, the nominal form was listed as a "nonce-word" only and didn't merit its own entry; it was kept under performance. It was never widespread in any dialect, unlike modern performant.

-Ant/-ent is not reserved for nouns anyway. There are informants, inhabitants, defendants, and many others, of course, but they can be ignorant, hesitant, pleasant, constant, tolerant, conversant, triumphant, significant, vigilant, dominant, compliant, adamant, reluctant, elegant...

Some of the second group fall into both categories, adjective and noun. Frequently the one form came later than the other. Add performant to that long list.

Don't feel too bad. Everyone has to be wrong about something. Luckily for you it's something small like this ;-)

What am I missing?

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/perfo...

> What am I missing?

My joke?

(I always forget how HN is hostile to whimsy. Even when it is carefully signposted with an emoticon.)

Just to add though: a word making its way into a dictionary is no guarantee of its usefulness, correctness or value. It only means a couple of definitions have been found in print. That's the standard by which words make it into dictionaries; there's no semantic gatekeeper.

You're qualifying my response as "hostile?" I guess we're getting into fluid definitions, so sure :) I'm not sure calling someone wrong accompanied with an emoticon qualifies as whimsical, either.

All that said, "correct" in language is "incorrect" tomorrow. That's how it's always worked.

If I learned to accept "entitled" as meaning "given a title" I'm sure we can all handle a fairly terse and parseable usage for performant.

> You're qualifying my response as "hostile?"

No, not you -- that was exasperation at the sudden, aggressive downvoting of what was clearly signposted as a joke. > I'm not sure calling someone wrong accompanied with an emoticon qualifies as whimsical, either.

It was as clearly whimsical as I can make it. Complimenting on being wrong on something so small.

But you're just making my point for me. I genuinely forget this place hates jokes that don't come with footnotes.

> If I learned to accept "entitled" as meaning "given a title" I'm sure we can all handle a fairly terse and parseable usage for performant.

"Never give up! Never surrender!"

I think the issue is less jokes than posts without enough context to live on their own.

I've seen plenty of humorous posts received well here when they're not jokes for the sake of the joke.

Fair point.