Coinages: the art o makting new words

To coin new words means to make them up. We also speak of minting words and even borrowing them, as if they were coins of the realm. If words were worth their weight in money, we’d all be rich. Still, it has become customary to speak of new or invented words as coinaes.

Coinages that name new concepts arc rarely completely new creations. The classic example googol was coined by Milton Sirotta, a boy of nine who was the nephew of the U.S. mathematician Edward Kasner. In the book Mathematics and the Imagination, written with James Newman, Kasner relates that, when he asked his young nephew to name a very large number, larger than the number of elementary particles in the entire universe (estimated to be 10 to the 80th power), Milton thought a moment, then exclaimed, “a googol! ”

A modern example of an obscure coinage that has been traced to an equally obscure source is the word quark. A quark is a fundamental nuclear particle from which protons and other subatomic particles arc composed. Quark was coined in 1961 by an American particle physicist, Murray Gellmann, who took the word from the line “Three quarks from Muster Mark! ” in James Joyce’s masterpiece Finneans Wake (1939). The line reflected Gell-Mann’s theory that there arc three types of quarks (named down quark, up quark, and strange quark) that combine in various ways to make up all subatomic particles. As to where Joyce got the word, it has been suggested that he borrowed it from the German slang term Quark, meaning a trifling thing, trash, rubbish.

In his 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty—Four, George Orwell coined the word Newspeak (for a language designed to distort the truth) by combining the adjective new with the verb speak.

COINAGES IN CIPCULATION

Successful coinages by individuals are relatively rare, though certain words known to have been coined by particular people have succeeded in making their way into dictionaries.

ECDYSIAST: A stripteaser. Coined by the writer and social critic I-I. L. Mencken (1880-1956) from ecdysis, the technical term for the shedding of the outer skin by a reptile or insect + the ending -ast in enthusiast. Mencken, author of The American Language (1921), coined the word with tongue in cheek as a euphemism for moralists who found the word “stripteaser” too racy.

FACTOID: An unsubstantiated statement, account, or report published as if it were factual. Coined by the novelist Norman Mailer from fact + -oid (as in android, humanoid), in reference to his fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe.

PSYCHEDELIC: Any of a class of drugs that alter one’s perception of reality. Coined in the late 1950s by Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist who researched the effects of mescaline and LSD, from a Greek word for “mind-revealing” or “mind-manifesting.” The term is still used by believers in the curative powers of mind-altering chemicals, such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and others. Nonbelievers refer to psychedelic drugs as hallucinogens.

SERENDIPITY: An aptitude for making unexpected discoveries by accident. Coined by the English author I—brace Walpole (1717-97) from Serendip, a former name of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) + the suffix -ity. In a letter dated January 28, 1754, Walpole explains that he coined the word after the title of “a silly fairy-tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip; as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” The Oxford English Dictionary points out that the word was formerly rare, but it gained wide currency in the 20th century.

WORKAHOLIC: A person addicted to work, obsessed with one’s job, or having a compulsive need to work constantly. Coined in the late 1960s by Wayne Oates, an American pastoral counselor, from work + a(lco)holic. The word spawned the combining forms -aholic and

-oholic.

nonce words:

Nonce words is is one that is constructed to serve a need of the moment. The writer is not seriously putting forward his word; he merely has a fancy to it for this once. The motive may be laziness, love of precision, or desire for a brevity or pregnancy that the language as at present constituted does not seem to him to admit of. Among the examples the authors cite (and correct parenthetically) are remindful (mindful), insuccess (failure), deplacement (displacement), correctitude (correctness), briskened (quickened), and unquiet (unrest). Most nonce words are transparent. formed from established words, and their meanings grasped at a glance

" Make practical stylistic tasks

Read the extract from A.Milne “Winnie-the-Pooh” based on childish creativeness. Comment on its linguistic mechanism:

Chapter IV

IN WHICH EEYORE LOSES A TAIL

AND POOH FINDS ONE

The Old Grey Donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a thistly corner of the forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, “Why? ” and sometimes he thought, “Wherefore? ” and sometimes he thought, “Inasmuch as which? ” — and sometimes he didn’t quite know what he was thinking about. So when

Winnie-the-Pooh came stumping along, Eeyore was very glad to be able to top thinking for a little, in order to say “How do you do? ” in a gloomy manner to him.

“And how are you? ” said Winnie-the-Pooh. Eeyore shook his head from side to side.

“Not very how, ” he said. “1 don’t seem to have felt at all how for a long time.

“Dear, dear, ” said Pooh, “I’m sorry about that. Let’s have a look at

So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh walked all round him once.

“Why, what’s happened to your tail? ” he said in surprise.

“What has happened to it? ” said Eeyore.

“It isn’t there! ”

“Are you sure’? ”

“Well, either a tail is there or it isn’t there. You can’t make a mistake about it. And yours isn’t there! ”

“Tlieii what is? ”

“Nothing.

“Let’s have a look, ” said Eeyore, and he turned slowly round to the place where his tail had been a little while ago, and then, finding that he couldn’t catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came back to where he was at first, and then lie put his head down and looked between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, “I believe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right, ” said Pooh.

“That Accounts for a Good Deal, ” said Eeyore gloomily, “It Explains Everything. No Wonder.”

“You must have left it somewhere, ” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Somebody must have taken it, ” said Eeyore. “How Like Them, ” he added, after a long silence.

Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but he didn’t quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead.

“Eeyore, ” he said solemnly, “I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for you, ”

Thank you, Pooh, ” answered Eeyore. “You’re a real friend, ” said he. “Not like Some, ” he said.

So Winnie-the-Pooh went off to find Eeyore’s tail.

It was a fine spring morning in the forest as he started out. Little soft clouds played happily in a blue sky, skipping from time to time in front of the sun as if they had come to put it out, and then sliding away suddenly so that the next might have his turn. Through them and between them the sun shone bravely; and a copse which had worn its firs all the year round seemed old and dowdy now beside the new green lace which the beeches had put on so prettily. Through copse and spinney marched Bear; down open slopes of gorse and heather, over rocky beds of streams, up steep banks of sandstone into the heather again; and so at last, tired and hungry, to the Hundred Acre Wood. For it was in the Hundred Acre Wood that Owl lived.

“And if anyone knows anything about anything, ” said Bear to himself, “it’s Owl who knows something about something, ” he said, “or my name’s not Winnie-the-Pooh, ” he said. “Which it is, ” he added. “So there you are.”

Owl lived at The Chestnuts, an old-world residence of great charm, which was grander than anybody else’s, or seemed so to Bear, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull. Underneath the knocker there was a notice which said:

PLES RING IF AN RNSR IS REQIRD.

Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said:

PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.

These notices had been written by Christopher Robin, who was the only one in the forest who could spell; for Owl, wise though he was in many ways, able to read and write and spell his own name WOL, yet somehow went all to pieces over delicate words like MEASLES AND BUTTEREDTOAST.

Winnie-the-Pooh read the two notices very carefully, first from left to right, and afterwards, in case he had missed some of it, from right to left. Then, to make quite sure, he knocked and pulled the knocker, and the pulled and knocked the bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud voice, “Owl! I require an answer! It’s Bear speaking.” And the door opened, and Owl looked out.

“Hallo, Pooh, ” he said. “How’s things? ”

“Terrible and Sad, ” said Pooh, “because Eeyore, who is a friend of mine, has lost his tail. And he’s Moping about it. So could you very kindly tell me how to find it for him? ”

“Well, ” said Owl, “the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.”

“What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean? ” said Pooh. “For I am Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.”

“It means the Thing to Do.”

“As long as it means that, I don’t mind, ” said Pooh humbly.

‘The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then —“

“Just a moment, ” said Pooh, holding up his paw. “What do we do to tt what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell me.”

“I didn ‘t sneeze.”

“Yes, you did, Owl.”

“Excuse me, Pooh, I didn’t, You can’t sneeze without knowing it.”

“Well, you can’t know it without having been sneezed.”

“What I said was, ‘First Issue a Reward’.”

“You’re doing it again, ” said Pooh sadly.

“A Reward! ” said Owl very loudly. “We write a notice to say that we give a large something to anybody who finds Eeyore’s tail.”

“I see, I see, ” said Pooh, nodding his head. “Talking about l somethings, ” he went on dreamily, “I generally have a small something al now — about this time in the morning, ” and he looked wistfully at the board in the corner of Owl’s parlour; just a mouthful of condensed mill whatnot, with perhaps a lick of honey —“

“Well, then, “ said Owl, “we write out this notice, and we put it over the forest.”

“A lick of honey, ” murmured Bear to himself, “or not, as the c may be.” And he gave a deep sigh, and tried very hard to listen to what I was saying.

But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words, until at lasi came back to where he started, and he explained that the person to write this notice was Christopher Robin.

“It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me. Did you them, Pooh? ”

For some time now Pooh had been saying “Yes” and “No” in turn, v

his eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying, and having said, “Yes, yes” I

time, he said, “No, not at all, ” now, without really knowing what Owl v

talking about.

“Didn’t you see them? ” said Owl, a little surprised. “Come and look them now.”

So they went outside. And Pooh looked at the knocker and the notice 1 low it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the notice below it, and the more looked at the bell-rope, the more he felt that he had seen something like somewhere else, somewhere before.

“Handsome bell-rope, isn’t it? ” said Owl.

Pooh nodded.

“It reminds me of something, ” he said, “but I can’t think what. Where d you get it? ”

“I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging over a bush, anc thought at first somebody lived there, so I rang it, and nothing happened, ai then I rang it again very loudly, and it came off in my hand, and as nobo seemed to want it, I took it home, and —“

“Owl, ” said Pooh solemnly, “you made a mistake. Somebody did want it.”

“Who? ”

“Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was — he was fond of it.”

“Fond of it? ”

“Attached to it, ” said Winnie-the-Pooh sadly.

So with these words he unhooked it, and carried it back to Eeyore; and when Christopher Robin had nailed it on in its right place again, Eeyore frisked about the forest, waving his tail so happily that Winnie-the-Pooh came over all funny, and had to hurry home for a little snack of something to sustain him. And, wiping his mouth half an hour afterwards, he sang to himself proudly:

Who found the Tail?

“I, ” said Pooh,

“At a quarter to two

(Only it was quarter to eleven really), I found the Tail! ”