Ades to Corruption

aide

–noun
1. nurse's aide.
2. an aide-de-camp.
3. an assistant or helper, esp. a confidential one.

-- from Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

I've long wanted to have a short word that I and others could use that would be an apt label for one who helps forestall or prevent reforms to decadent institutions.

The closest historical word, antidisestablishmentarian, is way too unwieldy to use for reformers to make any headway with.

I initially thought about using the near acronym ADET. This is comprised by taking the first letters of antidisestablishmentarian's two prefixes (Anti and Dis), the the first letter in Establishment and the first letter of the suffix (Tarian). While it has the advantage of a unique appearance, it sounds way too diminutive in speech. Hence I think it sounds far too benign to convey the nastiness that protectors of bad bureaucracies have been known to resort.

However, the word aide already exists, and the word antidisestablishmentarian is clearly a subset of aide definitions 2 and 3. So, I think I've found my answer.

I propose the semi-acronymic word ade be adopted. It is far less cumbersome a word than antidisestablishmentarian, and so lends itself well to public speaking, and better, to public acceptance. Good public speakers should be able, with proper inflections, to make it clear that they are speaking of ades and not the wider aides. And ade also separates such people from the true aids for our woes, the reformers who we so desperately need to stop the growth of Leviathan.

I intend to speak out in print using the word ade, so I just wanted to prepare the way.

**Update**

A reader has suggested this following line helps drive home the point about how much damage antidisestablishmentarians (ades) make inevitable because ades stymie society's natural defenses. Ades hinder society from reforming needed institutions and thwart her from eliminating unneeded and bad ones.

What AIDS does to the body, ades do to society.