Etymology: History of Words and Neologisms

• The Dutch presence left a linguistic legacy in America including terms like "blunderbuss" (1654), "scow" (1660), and "sleigh" (1703).
• By the mid-18th century, words like "stoop," "span," "coleslaw," "boss," "pit," "bedpan," "bedspread," "cookie," "waffle," "nitwit," "how come?", "poppycock," "dunderhead," and "caboodle" entered American English from Dutch.
• "Santa Claus" (from "Sinter Klaas") and "Yankee" (possibly from "Janke" or "Jan Kaas") are Americanisms from Dutch origin.
• J. Murray Spangler invented the electric suction sweeper around 1900, but it was William H. Hoover who popularized it.
• The word "hoover" became synonymous with "vacuum cleaner," especially in Britain where "hoovering" is used.
• Understanding new words like "spangler," "spanglerish," "spanglerism," "spanglering," or "spanglered" is possible due to language's regularity in word formation.
• A neologism is a new word in a language.

Etymology

• Etymology studies the origin and history of words, derived from Greek étymon ("original form") + logia ("study of").
• The evolution of new words and uses reflects the vitality of a language shaped by its users' needs.

Coinage

• Coinage is the invention of new terms, often from invented trade names.
• Examples of coinage: aspirin, nylon, vaseline, zipper, granola, kleenex, teflon and xerox.
• The word google (misspelling of googol) became a common expression meaning “to use the internet to find information."
• Eponyms are new words based on the name of a person or a place.
• Examples of eponyms are sandwich (from the Earl of Sandwich), jeans (from Genoa), fahrenheit, volt, and watt.

Borrowing

• Borrowing is a common process where English takes words from other languages.
• Examples include croissant (French), dope (Dutch), lilac (Persian), piano (Italian), pretzel (German), sofa (Arabic), tattoo (Tahitian), tycoon (Japanese), yogurt (Turkish), and zebra (Bantu).
• English terms borrowed by other languages include "suupaa/suupaamaaketto" and "taipuraitaa" (Japanese), "sport," "klub" and "futbal" (Hungarian), and "le stress," "le whisky," and "le weekend" (French).
• Loan-translation or calque is a special type of borrowing, involving direct translation of a word's elements into the borrowing language.
• The French term "gratte-ciel," the Dutch "wolkenkrabber," and the German "Wolkenkratzer" are calques for "skyscraper."
• The English "superman" may be a loan-translation of the German "Übermensch," and "loan-word" from "Lehnwort."

Compounding

• Compounding joins two separate words to produce a single form.
• German and English both use compounding more commonly than French and Spanish.
• Examples of English compounds include bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint, sunburn, textbook, wallpaper, wastebasket, and waterbed.

Blending

• Blending combines parts of two separate forms to create a new term.
• An example of blending is "gasohol" (gasoline + alcohol).
• Other blends: smog (smoke + fog), smaze (smoke + haze), smurk (smoke + murk), vog (volcano + fog), bit (binary/digit), brunch (breakfast/lunch), motel (motor/hotel), and telecast (television/broadcast).

Clipping

• Clipping reduces a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form.
• Examples of clipping: ad (advertisement), bra (brassiere), cab (cabriolet), condo (condominium), fan (fanatic), flu (influenza), perm (permanent wave), phone, plane and pub (public house).
• Hypocorisms are formed by reducing a longer word to a single syllable and adding -y or -ie, common in Australian and British English.
• Examples of hypocorisms: movie (“moving pictures”), telly (“television").

Backformation

• Backformation reduces a word of one type (usually a noun) to form a word of another type (usually a verb).
• The verb "televise" was created from the noun "television."
• Other examples: donate (from “donation”), emote (from “emotion”), enthuse (from “enthusiasm”), liaise (from “liaison”) and babysit (from “babysitter”).

Conversion

• Conversion changes the function of a word without reduction.
• Examples of conversion include the nouns bottle, butter, chair and vacation becoming verbs.

Acronyms

• Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.
• CD (“compact disk”) or VCR (“video cassette recorder”) are pronounced by saying each separate letter.
• NATO, NASA or UNESCO are pronounced as new single words.
• Examples of acronyms that became everyday terms: laser, radar, scuba and zip code.

Derivation

• Derivation uses affixes to form new words.
• These affixes include un-, mis-, pre-, -ful, -less, -ish, -ism and -ness.

Prefixes and Suffixes

• Prefixes are added at the beginning of a word (e.g. un-, mis-).
• Suffixes are added at the end of a word (e.g. -less, -ish).

Infixes

• Infixes are inserted inside another word, not normally used in English.
• Examples of infixes in English: Hallebloodylujah!, Absogoddamlutely! and Unfuckinbelievable!.

Kamhmu

• An example of infixing languages are Kamhmu which is spoken in South East Asia.

Multiple Processes

• Word formation involves more that one process at a time.
• The term "deli" evolved from "delicatessen" (borrowing) then clipping
• "Snowballed" evolved through compounding (snow + ball) then conversion to a verb.
• "Yuppie" evolved through acronym ("young urban professional"), hypocorism (-ie suffix), and analogy.