I have a former coworker who remains my Language buddy- that is, she’s the person I check with when I’m stuck on a word, or the appropriate phrase, or other such English language quandary. Hence, we had the following email exchange:
From: Tiffany Bridge
To: Language Buddy
Subject: I’m blanking.
What’s the noun form of “conform?” I’m sure it’s not “conformance,” like on this resume I just got, but it has snuck into my brain and is blocking the correct word.
From: Language Buddy
To: Tiffany Bridge
Conformity?
Conformance is just odd adherence would probably be better anyway.
Apparently conformance is a word though:
A relation between two types that serves as the basis of subtyping. Conformance relies on messages understood (ie, the object’s interface), not the internal representation or inheritance hierarchy.
www.stanford.edu/class/cs242/readings/vocabulary.html
To: Language Buddy
From: Tiffany Bridge
Hah. I’m pretty sure that’s not what this dude meant by “conformance to brand identity.”I think I will amuse myself this afternoon by coming up with as many incorrect nouns for “conform” as I can. Conformalization, conformervescence, conforma-lama-ding-dong…
From: Language Buddy
To: Tiffany Bridge
I think he tried to combine adherence to brand identity and conformed to brand identity standards, but I like conforma-lama-ding-dong. I’d read a resume that had that on it.
“conforming with brand identity” sounds right to me
I worked at a company two years back named Conformative Systems, we came up with a work to describe the product they tried to sell, called it “Pure Conformium”