noun coined here
COULD·ism
Possibility held as identity. Faces forward — the novel always going to be written, the potential one is perpetually sitting on.
It was couldism all the way down, and a very good CV.
Etymologycould + -ism, on the model of whataboutism, where -ism attaches to a conversational move rather than a doctrine.
NoteCould is a past tense doing non-past work, because English marks unreality as pastness. The base carries 'not real' before the suffix adds anything. Third member of the set is taken: Karen Horney named the tyranny of the should in 1950.
slot 5 · form 4 · clarity 5 · music 5 → 19/25 · one reader's opinion, ranks nothing