The New Word

We have a new word in the Urban Dictionary. The Urban Dictionary is an online dictionary that has a lot of invented, coined and combined words not found in your standard dictionaries. The newest word in this ever-evolving compendium is “surcame.” You won’t be able to guess its origin, so I’ll tell you in a few moments.

“Surcame” is defined in the Urban Dictionary as the past tense of “surcome.” Now, if that doesn’t help you, try the definition of “surcome” another word in the UD that isn’t found elsewhere. Well, that is defined as the same as “Succumb” which is further defined in the offline dictionary—Merriam Webster, New Oxford, or take your pick—as, “...to give way to, yield or die.”

Now that we know what “surcame” means, let’s examine, at least in my humble opinion, how it came to be.

I believe that someone twisted the word “succumb” into surcome, probably because they never took the time to look up the proper spelling. It sounds similar to succumb. It also is similar in spelling to the word “surcease,” which has a similar meaning to succumb and does contain the first syllable if the invented word. After that, the word became ingrained and was used repeatedly, so several others picked it up in their vocabularies.

Okay, wrong word, but close.

Now we come to the quote that first used the word “surcame” in context:

President came to the White house with a lot of good intentions to help the little guy, to make things fair, but he surcame to the wishes of big business, and to the political pressures of Washington DC.

Leave aside the fact that this quote isn’t even a complete sentence, and examine the use of the word. It was very clever of the ignoramus who uttered it to conjugate the improper word in order to make it preterit—past tense for those of you who didn’t know that word.

Who do you suppose it was that first used the word “surcame” in that incomplete sentence? Some street corner gang-banger? Perhaps a rapper? How about a high school drop out?

Surprise! It was Dr. Cornel West, a Princeton professor, actor, author, and political activist. I’ll give him the benefit of his prestigious position for the poor sentence structure, but c’mon, Doc, you owe our kids better grammar and language for their $50,000 annual tuition.

I rest my case...