What’s New? (Language-wise)

Neologisms

by Bob Buddemeier

Everybody has opinions about language.  If the following material does not render you glassy-eyed and drooling, you will have an opportunity tell us about yours.

Our Chief Word Nerd ran away to Hawaii this month and may not be back in the harness by deadline time – so it falls to me to provide you with TMNPLI = Too Much Nit-Picking Linguistic Information, this time about Neologisms.  Definition (found by Google):

“A neologism is a newly created word or expression that is not part of our official language system. Neologisms are also existing words or phrases that have gained a new meaning. Some Common Neologisms are App, Webinar, Staycation, Wicked, Sick, Google, Spam, Noob, BFF, Floss, Social Gifting, Chillax and Frinally.”

The examples given are various forms, including abbreviations or acronyms (App, BFF)¹, and redefined real words (wicked, sick, floss).  The invented words can be broken into categories: (1)  Combined words that have a semi-obvious literal meaning – Webinar, Staycation; (2) Words that sound and are spelled like real words – Google (think goo, ogle, giggle, gaggle), Spam (we already have spar, spat, span), maybe Frinally; (3) Pronounceable formulations that resemble nothing much else in English (Noob, Chillax²).

There is another category that deserves our attention – English word stems that have been restructured for convenience or to conform to some (other) grammatical or linguistic model, or for ease of use.  These tend to enrage purists and engage utilitarians.

Prime example:  ORIENTATE, which is back-derived from ORIENTATION, which is a legitimate offspring of ORIENT (v.t., align or direct).

[In case you haven’t guessed, dear reader, the author is enraged by this class of agrammatical neobarbarisms.]

What’s wrong with the original more concise verb, “orient”?  The only thing I can think of is that if you capitalize it you get a noun that designates a geographic region, but I doubt that the process of orienting a person would be mistaken for sending Him/Her/Them/It to Asia, or for turning HHTI (instant neologism) into an Asian.  After all, we don’t invent another word for polish just because there is a country containing Poles.

When we impose an obligation we are not obligatating HHTI; they are obliged or obligated; when we write an equation we do not “equatate” two things.  This probably reflects the fact that some verbs start out ending in “-ate,” while “-ation” is often adopted as a suffix to create a noun that doesn’t have a commonly used (or any) verb.  For example, accreditation.

Although, in the orientation example, adding two syllables and then removing one to get to the same meaning where you started doesn’t seem very useful, there are some cases where noun (participle) to verb conversions make sense. The Russia-Ukraine war has brought a focus on attrition³, which is a word that slid into English from Latin unaccompanied by a relevant verb.  Attrit is an unlovely and alien-sounding word, but I have to admit it is a lot more efficient to use than “inflict attrition upon” or similar circumlocutions.

If you made it this far your literary juices should be at least up to a simmer, so go to the Reply section and enter your most loved or hated neologisms (specify which).  Or even those that you just don’t understand.  The Editorial Board will award prizes for particularly insightful selections.

Footnotes (how else would you know this is a serious exposition?)

¹Personal opinion:  I think that a neologism should be a pronounceable word, and not just a collection of characters.  What is bff supposed to sound like?

²Right, there is a Hyrax, but the name comes from ancient Greek, and if you look up Hydrax you find that it is some sort of video villain (suitably alien).

³Entries linking to attrit

attrition (n.)

early 15c., attricioun, “a breaking;” 1540s, “abrasion, scraping, the rubbing of one thing against another,” from Latin attritionem (nominative attritio), literally “a rubbing against,” noun of action from past-participle stem of atterere “to wear, rub away,” figuratively “to destroy, waste,” from assimilated form of ad “to” (see ad-) + terere “to rub” (from PIE root *tere- (1) “to rub, turn”).

The earliest sense in English is from Scholastic theology (late 14c.): “sorrow for sin merely out of fear of punishment or a sense of shame,” an imperfect condition, less than contrition or repentance. The sense of “wearing down of military strength” is from World War I (1914). Figurative use of that is by 1930.