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London newspaper in 1909 over the use of the newly coined word aviation. Yet
many new words can cause similar outcries as they come into use today. Rather
than act as if the language is being debased, we might prefer to view the constant
evolution of new words and new uses of old words as a reassuring sign of
vitality and creativeness in the way a language is shaped by the needs of its
users.
Borrowing
One of the most common sources of new words in English is the process simply
labeled borrowing, that is, the taking over of words from other languages.
(Technically, it’s more than just borrowing, because English doesn’t give them
back.) Throughout its history, the English language has adopted a vast number of
words from other languages, including these examples:
Sometimes a new sound comes along along with new words. The voiced
fricative /ʒ/ became part of English through borrowed French words such as
measure and rouge.
Other languages, of course, borrow terms from English, as in the Japanese
use of suupaa or suupaamaaketto (“supermarket”) and taipuraitaa
(“typewriter”). We can also hear of people in Finland using a šekki (“check”) to
pay their bills, Hungarians talking about sport, klub and futbal, or the French
discussing problems of le stress, over a glass of le whisky, during le weekend.
In Brazilian Portuguese, the English words up and nerd have been borrowed
and turned into verbs for the new activities upar (“to upload”) and nerdear (“to
surf the internet”). In some cases, the borrowed words are used with quite novel
meanings, as in the contemporary German use of the English words partner and
look in the phrase im Partnerlook to describe two people who are together and
wearing similar clothing. Other German uses of English words are illustrated in
Task F on page 66.
Loan-translation
A special type of borrowing is described as loan-translation or calque (/kælk/).
In this process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a word into the
borrowing language. Interesting examples are the French term gratte-ciel, which
literally translates as “scrape-sky,” the Dutch wolkenkrabber (“cloud scratcher”)
or the German Wolkenkratzer (“cloud scraper”), all of which were calques for
the English skyscraper.
The English word superman is thought to be a loan-translation of the
German Übermensch, and the term loanword itself is believed to have come
from the German Lehnwort. The English expression moment of truth is believed
to be a calque from the Spanish phrase el momento de la verdad, though not
restricted to the original use as the final thrust of the sword to end a bullfight.
Nowadays, some Spanish speakers eat perros calientes (literally “dogs hot”) or
hot dogs, which have nothing to do with those four-legged perros. The American
concept of “boyfriend” was borrowed, with sound change, into Japanese as
boyifurendo, but as a calque into Chinese as “male friend” or nan pengyu.
Compounding
In some of the examples we have just considered, there is a joining of two
separate words to produce a single form. Thus, Lehn and Wort are combined to
produce Lehnwort in German. This combining process, technically known as
compounding, is very common in languages such as German and English, but
much less common in languages such as French and Spanish. Common English
compounds are bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint, sunburn, textbook, wallpaper,
wastebasket and waterbed. All these examples are nouns, but we can also create
compound adjectives (good-looking, low-paid) and compounds of adjective
(fast) plus noun (food) as in a fast-food restaurant or a full-time job.
This very productive source of new terms has been well documented in
English and German, but can also be found in totally unrelated languages, such
as Hmong (spoken in Laos and Vietnam), which has many recently created
compounds. (More examples can be found in Task I, on page 68.)
Blending
The combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term is also
present in the process called blending. However, in blending, we typically take
only the beginning of one word and join it to the end of the other word. To talk
about the combined effects of smoke and fog, we can use the word smog. In
places where they have a lot of this stuff, they can jokingly make a distinction
between smog, smaze (smoke + haze) and smurk (smoke + murk). In Hawai‘i,
near the active volcano, they have problems with vog. Some common examples
of blending are bit (binary/digit), brunch (breakfast/lunch), motel (motor/hotel),
telecast (television/broadcast), Oxbridge (Oxford/Cambridge) for both
universities considered together and the Chunnel (Channel/tunnel) connecting
England and France.
The activity of fund-raising on television that feels like a marathon is
typically called a telethon, while infotainment (information/entertainment) and
simulcast (simultaneous/broadcast) are other new blends from life with
television. To describe the mixing of languages, some people talk about
Franglais (Français/Anglais) and Spanglish (Spanish/English). In a few blends,
we combine the beginnings of both words, as in terms from information
technology, such as telex (teleprinter/exchange) or modem
(modulator/demodulator). A blend from the beginnings of two French words
velours croché (“hooked velvet”) is the source of the word velcro. How about
the word fax? Is that a blend? No, see next category.
Clipping
The element of reduction that is noticeable in blending is even more apparent in
the process described as clipping. This occurs when a word of more than one
syllable (facsimile) is reduced to a shorter form (fax), usually beginning in casual
speech. The term gasoline is still used, but most people talk about gas, using the
clipped form. Other common examples are ad (advertisement), bra (brassiere),
cab (cabriolet), condo (condominium), fan (fanatic), flu (influenza), perm
(permanent wave), phone, plane, porn and pub (public house). English speakers
also like to clip each other’s names, as in Al, Ed, Liz, Mike, Ron, Sam, Sue and
Tom. There must be something about educational environments that encourages
clipping because so many words get reduced, as in chem, exam, gym, lab, math,
phys-ed, poly-sci, prof and typo.
Hypocorisms
A particular type of reduction, favored in Australian and British English,
produces forms technically known as hypocorisms. In this process, a longer
word is reduced to a single syllable, then -y or -ie is added to the end. This is the
process that results in movie (“moving pictures”) and telly (“television”). It has
also produced Aussie (“Australian”), barbie (“barbecue”), bickie (“biscuit”),
bookie (“bookmaker”), brekky (“breakfast”), hankie (“handkerchief”) and toastie
(“toasted sandwich”). You can probably guess what Chrissy pressies are. By
now, you may be ready to take a sickie (“a day of sick leave from work, whether
for real sickness or not”).
Backformation
A very specialized type of reduction process is known as backformation.
Typically, a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of
another type (usually a verb). A good example of backformation is the process
whereby the noun television first came into use and then the verb televise was
created from it. Other examples of words created by this process are: donate
(from “donation”), emote (from “emotion”), enthuse (from “enthusiasm”) and
liaise (from “liaison”). Indeed, when we use the verb backform (Did you know
that “opt” was backformed from “option”?), we are using a backformation.
Here are some other recent creations.
Conversion
A change in the function of a word, as for example when a noun comes to be
used as a verb (without any reduction), is generally known as conversion. Other
labels for this very common process are “category change” and “functional
shift.” A number of nouns such as bottle, butter, chair and vacation have come to
be used, through conversion, as verbs: We bottled the home-brew last night;
Have you buttered the toast?; Someone has to chair the meeting; They’re
vacationing in Florida. These forms are readily accepted, but some conversions,
such as the noun impact used as a verb, seem to impact some people’s
sensibilities rather negatively.
The conversion process is very productive in Modern English, with new uses
occurring frequently. The conversion can involve verbs becoming nouns, with
guess, must and spy as the sources of a guess, a must and a spy. Phrasal verbs (to
print out, to take over) also become nouns (a printout, a takeover). One complex
verb combination (want to be) has become a new noun, as in He isn’t in the
group, he’s just a wannabe. Some other examples of conversion are listed here.
Verbs (see through, stand up) can also become adjectives, as in see-through
material or a stand-up comedian. A number of adjectives, as in a dirty floor, an
empty room, some crazy ideas and those nasty people, have become the verbs to
dirty and to empty, or the nouns a crazy and the nasty.
Some compound nouns have assumed other functions, exemplified by the
ball park appearing in a ball-park figure (as an adjective) or asking someone to
ball-park an estimate of the cost (as a verb). Other nouns of this type are
carpool, mastermind, microwave and quarterback, which are also used as verbs
now. Other forms, such as up and down, can also become verbs, as in They’re
going to up the price of oil or We downed a few beers at the Chimes.
It is worth noting that some words can shift substantially in meaning when
they go through conversion. The verb to doctor often has a negative sense, not
normally associated with the source noun a doctor. A similar kind of reanalysis
of meaning is taking place with the noun total and the verb run around, which
do not have negative meanings. However, if you total (= verb) your car, and your
insurance company gives you the runaround (= noun), you will have a double
sense of the negative.
Coinage
The invention and general use of totally new terms, or coinage, is not very
common in English. Typical sources are trade names for commercial products
that become general terms (usually without capital letters) for any version of that
product. Older examples are aspirin, nylon, vaseline and zipper; more recent
examples are granola, kleenex, teflon and xerox. It may be that there is an
obscure technical origin (e.g. te (tra)-fl(uor)-on) for some of these invented
terms, but after their first coinage, they tend to become everyday words in the
language. The most salient contemporary example of coinage is the word
google. Originally a misspelling for the word googol (= the number 1 followed
by 100 zeros), in the creation of the word Googleplex, which later became the
name of a company (Google), the term google (without a capital letter) has since
undergone conversion from a noun to become a widely used verb meaning “to
use the internet to find information.”
New words based on the name of a person or a place are called eponyms.
When we talked about a hoover (or even a spangler), we were using an eponym.
We use the eponyms teddy bear, derived from US president Theodore (Teddy)
Roosevelt, and jeans (from the Italian city of Genoa where the type of cloth was
first made). Another eponym dates from 1762 when John Montagu, the fourth
Earl of Sandwich, insisted on having his salt beef between two slices of toasted
bread while gambling. Apparently his friends started to ask “to have the same as
Sandwich.”
Acronyms
Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.
These can be forms such as CD (“compact disk”) or SPCA (“Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals”) where the pronunciation consists of saying
each separate letter. More typically, acronyms are pronounced as new single
words, as in NATO, NASA or UNESCO. These examples have kept their capital
letters, but many acronyms simply become everyday terms such as laser (“light
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”), radar (“radio detecting and
ranging”), scuba (“self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”), a sim
(“subscriber identity module”) card and zip (“zone improvement plan”) code.
You might even hear talk of a snafu, which is reputed to have its origins in
“situation normal, all fouled up,” though there is some dispute about the
appropriate verb in there.
Names for organizations are often designed to have their acronym represent
an appropriate term, as in “mothers against drunk driving” (MADD) and “women
against rape” (WAR). Many speakers do not think of their component meanings.
Innovations such as the ATM (“automatic teller machine”) and the required PIN
(“personal identification number”) are regularly used with one of their elements
repeated, as in I sometimes forget my PIN number when I go to the ATM
machine. The ATM example is also known as an “initialism” (see Task A, page
65).
Derivation
In our list so far, we have not dealt with what is by far the most common word-
formation process to be found in the production of new words. This process is
called derivation and it is accomplished by means of a large number of small
“bits” of the English language that are not usually given separate listings in
dictionaries. These small “bits” are generally described as affixes. Some familiar
examples are the elements un-, mis-, pre-, -ful, -less, -ish, -ism and -ness which
appear in words like unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful, careless, boyish,
terrorism and sadness.
Infixes
There is a third type of affix, not normally used in English, but found in some
other languages. This is called an infix, which is an affix that is incorporated
inside another word. It is possible to see the general principle at work in certain
expressions, occasionally used in fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by
emotionally aroused English speakers: Hallebloodylujah!, Absogoddamlutely!
and Unfuckinbelievable!. We could view these “inserted” forms as a special
version of infixing in English. However, a much better set of examples can be
provided from Khmu (or Kamhmu), a language spoken in northern Laos and
Vietnam.
Verb Noun
Multiple Processes
Although we have concentrated on each of these word-formation processes in
isolation, it is possible to trace the operation of more than one process at work in
the creation of a particular word. For example, the term deli seems to have
become a common American English expression via a process of first borrowing
delicatessen (from German) and then clipping that borrowed form. If someone
says that problems with the project have snowballed, the final word can be
analyzed as an example of compounding in which snow and ball were combined
to form the noun snowball, which was then turned into a verb through
conversion. Forms that begin as acronyms can also go through other processes,
as in the use of lase as a verb, the result of backformation from laser. In the
expression waspish attitudes, the acronym WASP (“white Anglo-Saxon
Protestant”) has lost its capital letters and gained a suffix (-ish) in the derivation
process.
An acronym that never seems to have had capital letters comes from “young
urban professional,” plus the -ie suffix, as in hypocorism, to produce the word
yuppie (first recorded in 1984). The formation of this new word, however, was
helped by a quite different process, known simply as analogy, whereby new
words are formed that are similar in some way to existing words. Yuppie was
made possible as a new word by analogy with the earlier word hippie and
another short-lived analogy yippie. The word yippie also had an acronym basis
(“youth international party”) and was used for some students in the USA who
were protesting against the war in Vietnam. One joke has it that yippies just grew
up to be yuppies. And the process continues. Another analogy, with the word yap
(“to make shrill noises”), helped label some of the noisy young professionals as
yappies.
Many of these new words can, of course, have a very brief life-span. Perhaps
the generally accepted test of the “arrival” of recently formed words in a
language is their published appearance in a dictionary. In recent years, we have
added app (from “application”) and vape (from “vaporizer”), both via clipping,
blog (from “web log”) and sexting (“sexual texting”) via blending, and unfriend
and mint (= “cool”) via conversion. Further examples are included in Task E, on
page 66.
However, new additions can sometimes lead to protests from some
conservative voices, as Noah Webster found when his first dictionary, published
in 1806, was criticized for citing words like advocate and test as verbs, and for
including such “vulgar” words as advisory and presidential. It would seem that
Noah had a keener sense than his critics of which new word forms in the
language were going to last.
Study Questions
1 When is an eponym a neologism?
3 Which two processes were involved in the creation of the verb google, as in
Have you ever googled yourself??