Language Deathmatch: Collocation versus Colocation
In terms of spelling, I favor “colocation” or “co-location” to describe the facility where the servers go. My mind says “colocation is the fruit of cooperation.”
A lot of people use the word “collocation” which is a linguistic term to describe the frequency of word sequences. I believe this term is favored by sales and marketing people because when they type it in the word processor it appears without a red squiggle underneath.
What annoys me the most about “collocation” is that the pronunciation is different:
colocation: “KOH-location”
collocation: “COW-location”
For what it is worth, Google implies that the Internet is still 3:1 in favor of “colocation” when searching for a “colocation facility”:
“colocation facility”: 38,300 results
“collocation facility”: 10,100 results
The Linguists responsible for the word “collocation” have another term for people who use the word incorrectly: “hypercorrection.” Hypercorrection is when someone who aspires to greater social prestige will attempt to use what they regard as more prestigious language, but they end up getting it wrong.
