A Language Question [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

Poll #6220 Reinventing Words

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

Have you ever made up a word on the spot because you didn't already know a word for what you meant, and later found your word, with basically your definition, in a dictionary (published before your nonce coinage)?

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Aye, indeed
5 (50.0%)

Nay, or at least not that I can recall
5 (50.0%)

Yeah, but not in English
0 (0.0%)

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Well, I've made up extensions of words (-ization, that sort of thing) that turn out to be right, but that's not the same.

And I've made up (/misremembered?) plenty of words that turn out to be real words, but don't mean what I intended them to mean.

[link] [reply]

Well yeah, transforming a root with "-ization" doesn't seem like it would count, but I'm not really sure where the line [is / should be]. The first time I recall doing this (memorable because I was challenged on it, insisted that it didn't matter whether it was in the dictionary because I'd made it up "according to the rules", and then went and looked it up anyhow with a "so there!"), was replacing "homo" with "hetero" to construct "heterogenous" (or "heterogeneous", which seems to be preferred though both show up in dictionaries). Does that count as a prefix or a co-stem?

So now I'm wondering where the line is.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I'm pretty sure I have, but not from whole cloth -- that would be bizarre coincidence. More like what metahacker said, though sometimes a bit higher up the tree, so to speak...

Um... these trees have their roots at the top; bear with me through a bit of linguistese. "-ize" and "-tion" and their combination "-ization" are productive affixes (http://www.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAProductiveAffix.htm): you can reliably attach them to stems you've never seen them used with, to form new words that other English-speakers will understand. I'm pretty sure I've done the same sort of thing with Greek and Latin roots that are used in English (especially in technical terminologies), to form new words that might be understood only within a particular field or by other people familiar with the classical components. I'm too brain-dead right now to come up with any examples, either that I've done or on the spot... like a classical sesquipedalianism for "brain-dead".

Oh! I remember one: "stultiloquent": 'speaking stupidly'. Some politicians are impressively stultiloquent.

Okay, "productive affix" sounds like a useful term that I probably should have learned before now[*]. It does provide a portion of as clue-like thing, as to where the line between modifying a word and coining a word should be (whether the line is sharp or fuzzy).

And my earliest-remembered example (see my reply to

metahacker) was in fact just such a case of replacing a Greek root as you described ... though I was assuming at the time (reasonably or unreasonably) that the root I replaced and the one I put in its place were generally familiar to non-specialist speakers. Though fershure, having an extensive vocabulary of Greek and Latin stems makes doing that a lot easier. (And I know I've heard friends do it with Germanic stems, though much less often, I think, and mostly folks who've at least poked at the idea of studying a little Old English.)

I am so going to have to remember and use "stultiloquent"! Than you for that one!

[*] "Should have" in a "well okay I've never even taken one course in linguistics, but I'm fascinated by language/languages and have done a little reading around the edges of linguistics" sense. So I guess I've got an excuse, but I still feel like I should've picked that up before now.

Edited Date: 2011-03-08 02:46 am (UTC)

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