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Excessorise
Professor David Crystal
Excessorise. It s based on the word  excess , of course. But
it s a lovely play on words because it reminds you of
 accessories .  Accessorise is actually an older usage, from
the 1930s in the United States. It means to furnish with
accessories.
 Excessorise is unusual because there is no word in
English,  excessory , as there is  accessory . So when I
heard the verb for the first time, I didn t really know what
it meant   let s excessorise with some whiskey somebody
said  it was the first time I d heard it, years ago. And I
thought,  excessorise?  I thought it was  accessorise and
then I worked it out, that it couldn t be, and I realised that
it was based on this word  excess -  let us drink to excess
it meant in that particular case. And that s how the word is
used  to eat or to drink, or to take drugs, or whatever it
might be, for personal indulgence in excessive amounts 
that s the point - if you re excessorising, you re doing
something excessively.
I ve heard it applied to jewellery as well.  He (or she) is really
excessorised! In other words, there s too much jewellery being used on
the person. I ve heard somebody talking about his car  or somebody
else s car  usually you talk about somebody else s things in this way, not
your own - somebody who had excessorised his car  in other words, it s
got all kinds of little gimmicks and gadgets all over it.
And the other day, for the first time - I couldn t believe this - I heard
somebody in a restaurant putting all sorts of things on his beef burger, all
kinds of extras, onions and sauce and all that sort of thing - and
somebody said  hey, you re excessorising!  talking about the beef
burger!
© British Broadcasting Corporation 2007