I am henceforth proposing the word "ambiative" (plural "ambiatives") to refer to either a positive or negative attribute of a given system, or a set of positive and negative attributes in the plural case.
There are no words I have been able to find that succinctly encapsulate the idea of "pros and cons" or "positives and negatives" in a single word, so I'm making one up. "Tradeoffs" comes close, but I don't think it's precise, and carries some undesirable baggage.
Even the roots make sense: -ative means "related to or connected with" and ambi- meaning "both". Similar to the definition of ambivalent: having both positive and negative feelings, but in this case it is the set of both positive and negative attributes.
Intended usage: "I'm weighing the ambiatives of the situation." Or similar, just replace pros and cons/positive and negative/etc.
Hey Pat!
1. I appreciate your careful consideration. Now I just need enough of our highly educated Qoto peers to start using it in their work, and it'll end up in the dictionary!
2. HAH, I OUT-WORDED THE GERMANS!!! I have long awaited this day 😂
@Pat P.S. Sorry if that came off as a bit curt, I've been in "shortening mode" for months w.r.t my writing. I've taken an academic article I'm editing and contributing to, and shrunk it by nearly 23 pages. Hence, my brain is hyper-motivated to be more laconic than I probably should be 😅
>"P.S. Sorry if that came off as a bit curt..."
Not at all. I like to write concisely also.
(Sometimes I will just favorite someone's toot rather than reply when I don't have time at the moment to do a full reply, or just to let them know that I've read their toot.)
@johnabs
I like this. I tried to find a word for this and couldn't. I thought of "alternatives", but that's not it -- I think what you are describing is actually "characteristics of alternatives" which is different. I also found "differential", and "differentia" which refer to the characteristic of the difference between alternatives.
The ambiatives of your new word are: 1) It's only one word rather than three; 2) It's four syllables instead of three (differential to pros and cons) -- but it's fewer syllables than "positives and negatives".
Now you just need to get someone with some influence to use it in an article or something.
(I also checked it in German -- the Germans have a word for everything -- but I couldn't find anything like this.)