4.10 · Where Do New Words Come From?

Where Do New Words Come From?

Lecturer: OK, let’s start. Every year, dictionaries add hundreds of new words, and every year somebody complains that English is getting worse. In 1712, the writer Jonathan Swift said English was being corrupted every day. But here’s the thing: a language that stops inventing words is a language nobody uses. New words are a sign of life. So, where do new words come from? I’ll give you four sources. The first is blending. You take two words, cut a piece off each one, and join them. Brunch is breakfast plus lunch, and it’s more than a hundred years old. Smog, smoke plus fog, is almost as old. Newer ones? If you’re so hungry that you get bad-tempered, you’re hangry. A holiday at home is a staycation. And joggers and a sports jacket in a place that isn’t a gym? That’s athleisure: athletic plus leisure. Those of you in automation use a blend every day: a cobot is a collaborative robot. The trick to understanding a blend is to find the two words hiding inside it.

Student (Tyler): Sorry, can I ask something? What about laser? Is that a blend too?

Lecturer: Good question, Tyler. No, laser is an acronym. Each letter starts a word: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Our engineering physics students use lasers every week, but few of them could say the full name. Radar and scuba are acronyms too. We say them as words, so most people forget they were ever initials. Now compare DIY or FAQ. We say those letter by letter, so they’re initialisms, not acronyms. OK, the second source: old words with new jobs. At first, Google was just the name of a company. In 2006, to google went into the big dictionaries as a verb. For centuries, friend was almost always a noun. Now you can friend someone, and unfriend them, with one click. Third, prefixes and suffixes build new words from old ones. Think of videos where someone opens a new phone: unboxing videos. Un, plus box, plus ing. You can work out the meaning from the parts. Or upcycling. Instead of breaking an old thing down, like recycling does, you turn it into something better. Our industrial design students upcycle old, unwearable jeans into bags. Fourth, English borrows. Barista is Italian, ballet is French, and shampoo comes from Hindi. And Mexico has given English some words too. Chocolate, tomato and avocado came from Nahuatl, through Spanish.

Student (Liam): Right, but how does a word get into the dictionary? Who decides?

Lecturer: Nobody decides, Liam, not really. Dictionary editors watch how people use a word. If lots of people use it, in lots of places, for a few years, it goes in. Hangry, for example, went into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018. And lots of new words don’t survive. Slang changes fastest: today’s cool word can sound old in five years. Buzzwords too. Words like disruptive and smart are everywhere in ads, until people get tired of hearing them. So, next time you hear a new word, don’t reach for your phone. Look at its form first: a blend, an acronym, a prefix? The form often tells you the meaning. For next class, bring one new word you’ve heard this week, and tell us how it was made.