disconnect or disconnection?

Noun 1. disconnect - an unbridgeable disparity (as from a failure of understanding); "he felt a gulf between himself and his former friends"; "there is a vast disconnect between public opinion and federal policy"

The latest Merriam-Webster's lists "disconnect" as a noun (dating back to 1976), so its use has some official sanction, I suppose.

The earliest citation in the Random House files credits the pollster and political analyst Pat Caddell (famed for his "national malaise memo" in the Carter era). Mr. Caddell, backing the nuclear-freeze movement in 1984, was described by Mother Jones magazine as "steaming over the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party -- its 'disconnect,' as he put it, from the vast forces for sweeping social change that are waiting to be mobilized: 'Look at the energy that is out in this country that is not being coalesced and put together!' "

Mr. Caddell's use of disconnect as a noun caught on; in diplomacy, it means "the breaking off of discussions or negotiations," and in politics, I find that it has gained these meanings: "1. out-oftouchedness, or the failure to perceive the direction of a movement; 2. misunderstanding based on lack of communication; 3. outright disagreement."

Thus, we have witnessed what grammarians call a functional shift -- a change in the use of a word from its customary status to another part of speech. The word itself doesn't change, but its function does; if you cannot stomach this, stop using the noun stomach as a verb; on the other hand, if you get a kick out of it, enjoy the verb kick in its functionally shifted form, as a slang noun meaning "surge of pleasure."

In the spoken language, we often signify these shifts with a change in pronunciation: if you obJECT to being Her Majesty's SUBject, become an OBject lesson in refusing to subJECT yourself to the Queen; to make up, preSENT her with a PRESent.

Edmund Burke, the English political leader, would be pleased at the functional shift that turns the verb disconnect into a noun with such nice political nuances. Writing in 1769 of "the Present State of the Nation" (a phrase that was picked up by Americans writing the Constitution as State of the Union ), Burke used disconnexion much as disconnect is being used today in warning of "a spirit of disconnexion, of distrust, and of treachery among public men." The New Contras

NOUN:
(dsk-nkt)

A lack of connection; a disparity: "There is a cosmic disconnect between what the voters want and what the party of the corporate interests can give them" (Bob Herbert).

I think the word disconnect can just be used as a verb, so "the disconnect" should be "the disconnection" or "the disconnecting". Do you agree with me?

disconnect
noun [C]
INFORMAL
a lack of connection; a failure of two things to relate
There's a disconnect between the public and the media.

(from Cambridge Dictionary of American English)