“How Words Enter English” RD 116
I.) Words are created by error.
Density
“Density” can be abbreviated by “D” or “d”.
“D or d” = density dord
Entered the 1934 M. Webster International Dictionary
Mishearing can also lead to new words-
buttonhold – buttonhole
sweetard – sweetheart
sparrow grass – asparagus
False analogy or back formation-
“pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold…”
“pease” (singular) was changed to “pea”
“cerise” – became “cherries”
Etymologically “cherries” should be both plural singular.
II.) Words are adopted.
A.) Some words are adopted directly from a language/country.
Shampoo – India
Ketchup – China
Slogan – Gaelic
Chaparral – Basque
B.) Some words are adopted indirectly.
Latin “bullire” (boil or bubble)
Old Italian “garbuglio” ( a mess)
Italian (dial) “garbuzo”
Norman French “garbage”
C.) Sometimes words reach at different times, having undergone various degrees of filtering. Therefore, they can exist in English in 2 or more related forms.
Canal – Channel
Regard – Reward
Poor – Pauper
Here are specific examples:
Latin "Quietus"
became
English “coy” and “quiet”
Latin “Sordere” (soiled or dirty)
became
English “sordid” and “swarthy”
D.) English sometimes so artfully Anglicizes words that it is a surprise to learn that they are not native:
English
puny = puis ne Anglo Norman
curmudgeon = coeur mechant French (evil heart)
breeze = briza Spanish
mayday = m’ aidez French (help me)
chowder = chaudiere French (cauldron)
bankrupt = banca rotta Italian (broken bench)
Strangely, we have borrowed few words from German.
III.) WORDS ARE CREATED
Sometimes words seems to appear from nowhere-
“hound” (hund) was used for centuries.Then suddenly “dog” appeared in the late Middle Ages. This word was etymologically unrelated to any other known word, and it displaced “hound”.
Other words with unknown pedigrees-
jaw fun noisome
jam crease numskull
bad pour jalopy
gloat put
In 19th century America, the word “blizzard” suddenly appeared. And more recently “yuppie” and “sound bites”.
Sometimes words that have fallen out of use suddenly gain prominence again-
“scrounge”
After 1900
“seep”
Sometimes writers make up words –
Shakespeare used 17,677 words in his writing, one tenth of which had never been used before:
barefaced, critical, castigate,
majestic, obscene, frugal,
dwindle, countless, gust, lonely,
summit, pedant, hurry, hint
Shakespeare gave us “gloomy” and the less useful “barky”.
Ben Jonson – damp, defunct, clumsy
Newton – centrifugal, centripetal
Sir Thomas More – absurdity, exaggertation
Coleridge – intensify
G.B. Shaw – superman
During WW II, the U.S. Army invented a food name “funistrada” as a test word for a survey of soldiers’ dietary preferences. Though the food didn’t exist, “funistrada” ranked higher than eggplant and lima beans.
IV.) WORDS CHANGE BY DOING NOTHING
The word stays the same, but the meaning changes.
Counterfeit – once meant legitimate
Brave – once implied cowardice (bravado still does.)
Crafty – originally a word of praise
Zeal – has lost its original pejorative sense (zealot has not)
Girl – In Chaucer’s day was any young person, boy or girl
Manufacture – once meant something made by hand
Obsequious – once meant flexible
Notorious – once meant famous
This apparent drift in meaning is called catachresis.
Egregious – Once meant eminent or admirable. In the 16th century, however, it suddenly took on the opposite sense of badness and unworthiness. Now it is used by many to mean pointless.
According to the linguist Mario Pei, more than half of all words adopted into English from Latin now have meanings quite different from their original ones.
NICE
1290 stupid, foolish
1365 lascivious, wanton
next 400 years extravagant, elegant, strange, slothful, unmanly, luxurious, modest, slight, precise, thin, shy, dainty, discriminating
by 1769 pleasant, agreeable
Sometimes an old meaning is preserved in a phrase or expression.
NECK was once widely used to describe a parcel of land. That meaning has died out except in the expression “neck of the woods.”
TELL once meant to count. Hence bankteller.
Occasionally, because the sense of the word had changed, the fossil expressions are misleading.
The statement – “The exception proves the rule.”
Most people believe this means that the exception confirms the rule, but is this logical? The answer is that the earlier definition of prove was "to test."
V.) WORDS ARE CREATED BY ADDING OR SUBTRACTING SOMETHING.
1.) English had more than a hundred common prefixes and suffixes.
able, ness, ment, pre, dis, anti
It can form and reform words with a facility that sets it apart from other tongues.
The French word mutin (rebellion) can be changed to mutiny, mutinous, mutinously, mutineer and others. The French have still just one – mutin
2.) We form compounds by adding an Old English prefix or suffix to a Greek or Latin root.
Plainness Sympathizer
and vice versa
Readable Disbelief
This inclination to use affixes provides incredible flexibility.
For example – incomprehensibility
Root – hen
Eight affixes – in, com, pre, s, ib, il, it, y
Or the melodic example –
quasihemidemisemiquaver =128th of a semibreve
3.) This flexibility can cause confusion.
For example – 6 ways to make labyrinth into an adjective.
Labryinthian, Labyrinthean, Labyrinthal, Labyrinthine, Labyrinthic, Labyrinthical
We have at least 8 ways of expressing negation.
a, anti, in, il, im, ir, un, non
Why is something unseen not unvisible, but invisible?
While something that cannot be reversed is not unreversible, but irreversible. And a thing that is not possible is not nonpossible or antipossible, but impossible.
However, not all words with a negative prefix or suffix are negative.
For example – in = not
but not in invaluable
less = lower
but not in priceless
There are many examples of 2 forms meaning the same thing –
flammable – inflammable fervid – perfervid
iterate – reiterate ravel – unravel
ebriate – inebriate habitable – inhabitable