Some Thoughts on the “M” Word

By John Graham
Editorial from UCSF Weekly, Nov. 11, 1999

A lot of attention has been given to the UCSF Stanford merger in the last few years. With the recent announcement bringing a halt to the merger, discussions have led many to try to articulate the opposite of that dreaded “M” word. But people stumble over its opposite. It’s like the language was invented without concern for a suitable antonym to the word in question. You see perfectly smart people come to the noun they want but can’t really have--is it the “unmerger,” the “dismerger,” the “demerger?” Last week’s merger article showed a photo of a scrawl on the wall of the stairwell in the School of Nursing which said: “Undo merger.” A helpless voice with an albeit imperative but unhelpful verb. One wonders if they really wanted to say, “Undue merger.” It’s an adjective in that case, but perhaps more meaningful.
  But what is it? What is the opposite of “to merge?” A search of the usual thesauruses simply directs one to the obvious synonyms like “combine” or “blend.” Only from them can you derive the antonym. A visit to www.askjeeves.com--which seems to be able to answer just about any question posed on the planet--one types in “What is the opposite of `to merge’?” and the answer produces nine matches--none of them an antonym to the word “merge.” One reply does provide the mysterious link “Paranormal Story Archives, Paranormal Phenomena.” Hmmmm.

Back to Basics
There are some very good definitions of “to merge” out there. Webster’s New World Dictionary says that to merge means “to lose or cause to lose identity,” which is great--it’s a verb which can be aimed and, depending upon the aim, determines the conqueror and the conquered. Did you lose your identity, gain an identity or keep your identity after merging? Well, fortunately I kept my identity . . . but it cost me a lot of money. The etymology of “merge,” from the Latin mergere, means to dip, immerse or plunge into water. Take the plunge! Farther back in history the word is traced to the Sanskrit, majjati, meaning “he dives.” When he dives then he submerges. Does he lose his identity then? How about when he reemerges? And at what cost? One supposes that it has a lot to do with just what one dove into. People dive into a lot of things: water, marriages . . . business deals.
  It seems that to find the opposite of “merge” one needs to employ the basic, recommended synonyms to the word and just view them oppositely. In this way we could elect some rather useful stand-ins. I particularly like disinosculation, discoalesce and disaglutinate. Although they are heavy on the vowels, they are also quite snappy. You hear the headlines now: “Today Stanford and UCSF, the aglutinated aglutinates, disaglutinated.” Sounds sticky.
We could forgo the prefixes and just use good, hearty antonyms to the word merger--like caesura, fusion or cleavage. “Looks like it’s cleavage time between UCSF and Stanford.” Or . . it isn’t.
  How about basic, action words to turn a merger around. Affectionately referred to as verbs, they help flush out a noun’s implicit metaphor. That’s why you hear people wanting to “undo” the merger, like trousers that don’t fit, or “call it off” like an angry dog. I suppose “stop” would be too straightforward. “Stop the merger?” Naw--not snappy enough and seemingly without metaphor. Let’s just dissolve the merger, like an antacid tablet.
  Well, there you have it. There’s no easy way to unmerge a merger. You might call it an amerger or anmerger (because it was never a merger to begin with). So the next time you hear someone stuttering over the opposite of what it is to merge, don’t get frustrated with them. Nobody knew what it was to merge in the first place, how would they know what the opposite is.