Why Writers Keep Dictionaries on Their Shelves...

...to prevent them from writing sentences like this:

The terms used to describe them [negative symptoms of schizophrenia] are derived from the Greek: affective flattening, alogia, and avolition. (p.328, from A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar)

Well, not really. I will give her "alogia."

And the rest?

Affective (Latin) < ad + facio
Flattening (Germanic) < flato- + -en
Avolition (Greek & Latin) < α + volo

The last one is the most interesting. In college we used to make a game of catching these nasty neologisms from two different languages. They are often a sure sign of bad prose. For those unaware, the technical term is σαρδισμός (sardismos), i.e. the kind of word you would find in Sardis, where Greek, Lydian, Persian, and other languages mingled in odd combinations.