Dear English Speaking World,
Architecting and Architected are not what you think they are and are not even words. Please stop using them. While I believe that the English language is a bastardization of the Romance Languages, and the result of appropriating words from conquered cultures, and simple making shit up, the madness has to stop. Like people who put an “s” on the end of all words to make them plural, the uncouth take architect and put “ed” or “ing” turning the noun into a verb or adjective.
I notice that the use of Architected and Architecting crop up predominantly in the computer, software and project management iron triangle. Just look in an Amazon.com search: The Business Knowledge Investment: Building Architected Information or Developing Client Server Applications in an Architected Environment. People who want to sound smart use Architected; appropriating the residual fame and glory the architectural profession has retained.
The most egregious example is from Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank: A Novel about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney’s love story. Found on page 202: This house – the word seemed somehow wrong – was like nothing else she had ever seen. It looked so modern so architected. Yet it was harmonious with the hills its overhanging roofs echoing the pitch of the ridge. Ballantine Books should ask for their money back: it is unfair to butcher the English language in such manner and get paid for it.
Say this word out loud: Architected.
Shiver. Notice all of the hard “ch” and “t” sounds you have to spit out? Notice the four syllables? This is a mongrel of a word; even if language is speech, this word spoken out loud is ridiculous.
Now try, Architecting.
Same hard sounds and four syllables. Surely we can do better?
In their place, dear English Speaking World, why don’t you try: design, designed or designing? These are ready-made words for your use, which have pedigrees dating back to the 14th Century (design, designed), and 1653 (designing)! You save yourself the trouble of all those hard “ch” sounds and you use less syllables. Win-win.
And you don’t sound stupid.