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Neologism
Neologism – /niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- néo-, ‘new’ and λόγος lógos, ‘speech, utterance’, borrowed from the French, néologisme in the 1700s, is the creation of new words, which of course is nothing new, Shakespeare was a master neologist and before him, well, someone had to invent them.
Language is ever evolving and forever fascinating. There has always been and will most certainly always be, debate surrounding the usefulness and relevance in regards to the coinage of new words, recent decades have spawned many new words and spurred many such debates.
I must admit I’m not always on the side of pop culture when it comes to cementing certain words to the history of language. Though I profess to be a tried and true logophile, such an unseemly name for such a beautiful obsession, I do struggle with certain recent entrants into our everyday vernacular.
Several years ago I was a bit taken back when I jokingly typed muffin top into dictionary.com and actually found a definition. It is right there in black and white, listed as a noun, defined as flesh that falls over the waistband of a garment, example: muffin tops hanging over tight jeans. Etymology, 2003; for its resemblance to the food . . . also known as muffin roll.
This discovery led me to type in my bad, forty-eight meanings followed by even further explanations. At least now I know where to go when I’m unsure what the teenage beings inhabiting the planet are saying. In January of 2005 the American Dialect Society deemed luanqibaozhao least likely to succeed in its Words of the Year vote, fittingly, it is Chinese for a complicated mess, fitting as well for some of today’s new entrants into dictionary prestige.
A newly coined word for newly coined words is protologism, you won’t find this in any mainstream dictionary, at least not yet, it has however, earned entry in urbandictionary.com – protologism – n Greek protos, first, original + Greek logos, word; cf. prototype, neologism – a newly created word which has not yet gained any wide acceptance. It is a prototype or a hypothetical projection of a new lexical unit before it may become current in writing or speech.
The word “protologism” proposed here and now is itself an example of protologism. In contrast to protologisms, neologisms are words that have already been in public usage by authors other than their inventors. As soon as a protologism finds its way into newspapers and websites, journals and books, it becomes a neologism.
Old(ish) new words. Radar was birthed in 1941, while technically an acronym for radio detecting and ranging, it is still a relatively new word, that same year the word robotics was accepted. In 1968 blackhole became another mainstream word. Hyperspace (1934), phaser, (1966), metaverse (1992) and replicant (1982) are also examples of new old words. Political correctness, soccer mom, genocide, homophobia, and meritocracy all came in to being between 1943 and 1992.
Nonce words almost fit into the category of new words, these are words made up for a specific, usually one time use in literary pursuits. Over a thousand nonce words appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, “touch-me-‘not-ishness (stand-off-ish.) 1837 Dickens, There was a dignity in the air, a touch-me-not-ishness in the walk, a majesty in the eye of the spinster aunt. cot’queanity (character or quality of a (female) cotquean. [The housewife of a cot or labourer’s hut] 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster We tell thee thou angerest us, cotquean; and we will thunder thee in pieces for thy cotqueanity. I’m rather fond of several of them.
Onto some of our newer additions, many of which I have a hard time understanding their usage, but by popular demand they can now be looked up and utilized for generations. Mouse potato, earwurm, sexting, man cave, bucket list, unibrow, bling-bling (or simply bling), hoody, manga, ginormous, soul patch, supersize, himbo, google, drama queen, ringtone, crunk, degenderize, ixnay (yes, pig-latin), biodiesel, telenovella, docusoap, dramedy, smackdown, spyware, emoticon, chill pill, and trekkie are among the new and wondrous words immortalized in print.
There are other very real and very invented words in the English Oxford Dictionary of notable origin. Hobbit for instance, created in 1937 by J.R.R Tolkien. Grok was made up by Robert Heinlein in 1961 for his novel Stanger in a Strange Land. Camelious was coined by Kipling in 1902 and Shazam was invented for the Captain Marvel Comics in 1940. The word spoof was invented for a game created by Arthur Roberts in 1884. The word blatant was coined Edmund Spencer in 1596 in The Faerie Queen to describe a thousand tongued monster representing slander.
There will always be words, ancient, old, new and newer. I may not like them all, but I can’t help but love each one of them.
Crystal R. Cook
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Journalism Today
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault.”- Henry Anatole Grunwald
True journalism is both a craft and a profession. I’ve long respected those who travel with pen in hand to bring news and information to all. Without journalists we would be lost in a sea of misinformed confusion. Of course, there are those who could argue we actually are lost in a sea of misinformed confusion brought on by those who wear the guise of journalistic integrity.
The dictionary gives more than one definition for the word journalism.
(1) The occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.
(2) Writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing.
I fear the first definition will soon become no more than a simple eulogy for a noble profession which was once respected and much-needed. Journalism used to require passion and diligence. It required dedication and talent. True journalists are a dying breed. Not only did they research their facts, they wove their words carefully, keeping their personal opinions for the editorial pages. There are still those who endeavor to maintain the essence of journalism, but they are among a dying breed.
It can be argued there have always been those who sullied the profession with half-truths and misinformation, an argument which would be hard refute. The art of journalism has been caught up in an increasingly downward spiral toward the fast paced, one-sided, in your face reporting being touted as journalism today.
Ellen Goodman summed it up simply when she said, “In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.”
The second definition best describes what seems to be taking place in today’s journalism industry. Write what sells. Go ahead and throw in your personal views and make speculations. Today it’s all about the headline, the writing itself seems to be secondary to the topic. Write it, don’t worry about writing it well, just write it. The public is being misinformed and seems content to be remain blissfully uninformed by the steady decline in journalistic morality.
To be honest, it’s frightening.
“There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.” – Oscar Wilde certainly had a way with words.
A good journalist has to be a writer. Many of today’s bylines are given to anyone who can type. I respect the restraint a journalist has to maintain the integrity of whatever piece they are working on, the ones who do not put words to a page until they know it to be fact. In recent years there have been more than one respected journalist shift to the other side. Sad but true, you just can’t believe everything you read.
I applaud those who have remained true to the art of journalism, they are indeed craftsmen worthy of admiration and accolade.
Crystal R.Cook
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I just love satire.
I’ve grown weary of ridiculous satire pieces being shared as fact. I love satiric writing, I do, but sites like the Daily Currant and The Onion take things too far sometimes. At the very least, they should have a disclaimer at the bottom of the fictional follies they publish bold enough for those who do not possess the satirical savvy required to prevent them from believing everything they read without question.
If you come upon an article from one of these delightfully distasteful sites, PLEASE do not forward as fact or get your panties in a bunch about it.
Satire – noun
1. the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc..
2. a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
List of satirical sites offering up doses of delusion for your reading pleasure . . . I realize this describes just about every news source these days, but these are the ones who admit it.
http://www.nationalreport.net
http://www.theonion.com
http://www.private-eye.co.uk
http://www.newsbiscuit.com
http://www.thespoof.com
http://www.sportspickle.com
http://www.unconfirmedsources.com
http://www.crystalair.com
http://www.enduringvision.com
http://www.derfmagazine.com
http://www.newsmutiny.com
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk
http://www.duffelblog.com
http://www.newstoad.net
http://www.dailycurrant.com
http://www.rockcitytimes.com
http://www.lightlybraisedturnip.com
http://www.christwire.com
http://www.cap-news.com
http://www.texascockroach.com
http://www.borowitzreport.com
http://www.thedailyrash.com
I am certain there are many, many more . . . Please feel free to add to the list in comments.
From the Daily Currant –
The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media. It is accessible from over 190 countries worldwide – now including South Sudan.
Our mission is to ridicule the timid ignorance which obstructs our progress, and promote intelligence – which presses forward.
Q. Are your news stories real?
A. No. Our stories are purely fictional. However they are meant to address real-world issues through satire and often refer and link to real events happening in the world
Not real folks, NOT REAL!
Crystal R. Cook
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The things I do to pass the time
I’ve been strangely preoccupied with vowels today . . . I tend to get stuck on various oddities and random subjects when I am anxious. My son boards an airplane on Saturday, he is heading home. I’m happy he’ll be home soon, but nervous about the trip. So to deal, I obsessed on vowels all day. Who knows, the topic could arise one day and you’ll be glad you read my ramblings. It could happen.
The English language, language in general, is filled with all sorts of interesting oddities. Since I was old enough to read I have been fascinated with words. I seemed to have a knack for picking up on some of their various little quirks, one I found particular delight in were words with vowels, not just vowels, almost all words contain vowels, it was words with vowels in alphabetical order that caught my fancy.
There are many words which contain letters arranged alphabetical order such as almost, begin and biopsy, but even more interesting are those composed of vowels in the exact order in which we first learned them, a, e, i, o, u and yes, sometimes y.
One such word is ArsEnIOUs (arsenious), which means something derived from or containing arsenic. Another is sUbcOntInEntAl, while at first glance subcontinental doesn’t appear to fit the alphabetical mold, it does, it just does so backward. Another backward vowel order word is dUOlItErAl (duoliteral).
In yet another example, fAcEtIOUslY (facetiously) the often misunderstood Y has been included. So far the longest word known to have all five vowels is order (for those of you who can overlook the Y as a vowel) is phragelliorhynchus with eighteen letters, while not found in the dictionary, it is widely recognized in the scientific realm as a protozoan. The shortest I’ve seen thus far is the word areious with just seven letters. The longest word I have found with the vowels in reverse order is another scientific term, this time for a crustacean, punctoschmidtella with seventeen letters.
Science has provided us with more than a few of these fun and nearly impossible to pronounce words with well placed vowels. Lamelligomphus, a type of dragonfly, annelidous is something to do with segmented worms; I didn’t study further into this particular definition. Adecticous means with immobile mandibles. Juloidea (reverse order) is a family of millipedes, super millipedes to be more precise. Another in reverse order is a rodent by the name of muroidea.
There are more than a few words which have become nearly obsolete in our everyday vernacular but fit well into the category of alphabetical vowel usage. Affectious and affectiously are little used variants of affectionate. Cameelious is word created in jest by Kipling to describe the lazy camel’s hump in his Just So Stories. Placentious, meaning pleasing, or disposed to please; complaisant or agreeable. Gravedinous lends itself to define drowsy or heavy-headed.
Better known words with this fun element include, in alphabetical order of course, abstemious(ly) abstentious(ly), acheilous, acheirous, adventitious(ly), annelidious, aerious, arteriousum, avenious, bacterious, cavernicolous, casious, hareiously, materious, parecious(ly), placentious, tragedious, uncomplimentary. This is just a sampling of the many words in this world which have the distinction of having all their vowels in order.
Perhaps these are not facts you will use in your everyday life, but they are fun little tidbits to know if you happen to be enamored with words. The dictionary can be a wonderful playground. I have great respect for words, their form and their function, I find great beauty in them.
*I perused the Internet while writing this, looking for words to add to my list and was dismayed to find many seemingly made up words or words slightly misspelled to fit the mold. There were hundreds of words to be found, but only dozens with definite definitions, so of course, only those definitively defined were used above. Definitely.
Crystal R.Cook
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In case you’ve ever wondered, and I doubt you have.
While trying to occupy myself with anything other than laundry, I let my mind begin to wander. It took me the better portion of the day to find it. It gets lost in the strangest of places, today I found it drinking coffee and pondering vowels. Why? Why not? Vowels are cool, and, if you don’t know it by now, I can be a little left of normal sometimes.
So the laundry lay unattended whilst I looked up words, using a prompt I recalled from somewhere asking what the longest letter in the English language was which used a singular vowel. My kind of interesting . . . My husband hasn’t any clean socks, yet somehow I still feel accomplished.
Now, after much consideration and counting, it seems the longest word in the English language with only one vowel is strengths which is made up of nine letters. In comparison to the word strengthlessness, which has sixteen letters, strength is relatively small. Though strengthlessness has three vowels, they are in fact the same vowel simply utilized thrice, thus making it a much longer word utilizing just one of the five vowels.
If you excuse Y from its part-time vowel work, the word glycyphyllin which is a photochemical compound, has a singular vowel as well and consists of twelve letters.
There are a plethora of words which utilize just one vowel, not too hard to come by at all, so far, I’ve made use of seventy-six such words not counting those appearing more than once. Eighty-one when you consider *a* and *I* are actual words themselves, minuscule in comparison to the twenty letter word Chrononhotonthologos. Like strengthlessness, it contains the same vowel more than once, but only one vowel nonetheless.
The larger the words the harder they are to find, but there are more than a few with the same vowel used in repetition, technically they do utilize only one of the chosen few we call vowels, a, e, i, o, u . . . and sometimes y.
Succubus (three – u) has eight letters.
Screeched, (three – e), mundungus (three- u), beekeeper (five – e) these words have nine letters in each.
Asarabacca (five – a), oconomowoc (five – o), numbskulls (two – u), untruthful (three -u), dumbstruck (two – u), decrescence (four – e), nebelwerfer (four – e) and telemetered (five – e) each have eleven letters.
Taramasalata (six – a) is comprised of twelve letters.
Effervescence (five – e) is a good example with thirteen letters. Handcraftsman (three – a ), Mississippi (four – i), disinhibiting (five – i), whipstitching (three – i), kinnikinnicks (four – i) primitivistic (five – i), Philistinisms (four – i) have thirteen as well.
Instinctivistic (five – i) and defenselessness (five – e) have fifteen letters respectively.
Coming in at twenty letters is Chrononhotonthologos (seven – o), a satirical play by the English poet and songwriter Henry Carey from 1734.
While each of these words obviously contain more than one vowel, they do have the distinction of having the same vowel throughout, so depending on your criteria, the longest word in the English language (I have so far found) with only one vowel is either strengths or Chrononhotonthologos.
*Yes, they are all real words.
Crystal R. Cook
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Weird Al, I love you. I do.
The actual amount of epic awesome packed into three minutes and forty-five seconds of Weird Al perfection here is indescribable. I will be memorizing and singing this song to the annoyance of anyone within earshot as often as I can, this means my husband and my children are going to love me all the more, or not. I really couldN’T care less!
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Why does it always surprise me?
Facebook Facepalm of the Week . . .
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Word Wise – Forte
Word Wise
While in line at the supermarket, totally not eavesdropping mind you; some people are just loud talkers, I overheard a woman lamenting about her ability, or rather lack of ability in the area of sewing. She sighed, “Sewing is just not my forte.” People say it all the time, the problem is, they are saying it incorrectly, if you want to nit-pic about it and I sometimes do.
I have an almost unnatural affinity for words, I take care to use them as properly as I possibly can. I will unashamedly admit I used to say it wrong as well. Most of us do. I guess you could say words are my forte and you would be pronouncing it, or at least I would be pronouncing it as fōrt. One simple syllable, fort. This pronunciation defines the subject as a persons strong point, or something they are extremely capable of.
The oft used two-syllable pronunciation of forte, fōr′tā, is technically a musical term meaning loud and forceful, pertaining to a section of a musical score.
Now for the most part, the arguably finer sounding of the two words is widely accepted when explaining your particular prowess in an area of achievement. I understand, everyone knows what you mean when you announce something is your fortay. You are likely to get strange looks if you tell someone your fort is cooking, they may envision your kitchen chairs and couch cushions with blazing sheets draped over them.
I concede, I prefer the sound of forte with two lovely syllables, it flows nicely and sounds proper, whereas the shorter version is an unexpectedly abrupt and juvenile conversation enhancer. Still, I can’t stop my mind from mentally correcting someone each time I hear it.
There is one more lesser known definition to the word you may not have heard of unless you happen to be a swordsman or fencing enthusiast. Forte, again pronounced fort, is a strong section of a blade between the hilt and the middle of the object.
I feel purged, this has been swirling around in my mind for two days. Holding onto random, meaningless thoughts must be yet another forte of mine, pronounce how you wish . . .
Crystal R. Cook
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I have an issue with that.
I have an issue with that, the word that, that is. The word itself is useful enough, important even at times; other times, not so much.
First, the fundamentals. That is typically considered a function word, meaning it has a function, a subordinating conjunction function. I couldn’t resist.
That is used to introduce a clause stating a reason or purpose, to introduce a clause that is the subject or object of a verb, and used to introduce a clause completing or explaining the meaning of a previous noun or adjective.
To be honest, an entire page could be written regarding the various uses for the word in question, I think I’ll skip it and get to the point of this piece. If you’re interested in learning all there is to know about the word that, and who wouldn’t be, Google has you covered.
My particular peeve is the unnecessary overuse of this particular four letter, subordinating conjunction. One of the first things that I do when I’m sent something to edit or critique is eliminate the word that everywhere that it can be eliminated.
I’ll use a recent email that I received – I was wondering if you could check out this essay that I wrote. I was hoping that you could give me some tips that I could use to make it better. I think that it’s pretty good but I want to make sure that it is.
My reply – I was wondering if you could check out this essay that I wrote. I was hoping that you could give me some tips that I could use to make it better. I think that it’s pretty good but I want to make sure that it is.
I would be happy to look over your work and provide you with any insights or advice I can. My first piece of advice, is to go through your essay and remove the word that, as I have done above, wherever possible, and copy it back to me.
With just this simple edit, her essay took on a maturity that it was lacking, it became more readable, and ultimately, more likely to meet her professors expectations.
Most of us are guilty of inserting the word that where it isn’t necessary. When I find old articles or stories that I’d written before I had my grand epiphany about the word, I cringe at the number of times I see it sprinkled throughout the text. It wasn’t until I started editing for others that I noticed how choppy and unrefined something reads when that is practically used as a comma throughout their work.
Obviously, sometimes you need the word that, I don’t want to vilify the poor word, quite the opposite, I want to give it the dignity it’s deserving of. Following one pretty simple rule makes it easy, if your sentence is not going to lose meaning without the word that, you don’t need it.
Example: I was hoping that we could have a picnic this afternoon.
I was hoping we could have a picnic this afternoon.
The second example has better flow.
When you begin your next work of words, be on the lookout for that and make certain that it is being utilized properly. Before you hit enter or publish or send, take a minute to double-check, it will make a difference, I can almost guarantee it.
Crystal R. Cook
The Qwiet Muse 