Predicting new words থ্রেড পোস্টার: Jacek Krankowski (X)
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Jacek Krankowski (X) 
ইংরেজি থেকে পোলিশ
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By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Why do some new words become staples of our everyday language while others
fade away? Why have words and phrases like \"moonlighting,\" \"politically
correct\" and \"yuppie\" entered the mainstream, while other recently minted
ones like \"velcroid\" (a person who sticks by the president, \"especially for
photo opportunities\"), \"prosultant\" (emphasizing the positive in the
consulting business) and \"shui... See more By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Why do some new words become staples of our everyday language while others
fade away? Why have words and phrases like \"moonlighting,\" \"politically
correct\" and \"yuppie\" entered the mainstream, while other recently minted
ones like \"velcroid\" (a person who sticks by the president, \"especially for
photo opportunities\"), \"prosultant\" (emphasizing the positive in the
consulting business) and \"shuicide bomber\" (\"terrorist with bomb in shoes\")
have failed to catch on?
Why did \"server\" as a gender-neutral term for waiter or waitress prevail
over \"waitron\"? Why do restaurants serve \"brunch\" but not \"linner\"? Why did
\"Lilliputian\" catch on, but not \"Brobdingnagian\"?
In tackling such questions, Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the
American Dialect Society, has come up with an intriguing idea for a book.
But while \"Predicting New Words\" is filled with interesting tidbits and
asides, the book as a whole is full of holes and flawed by a dogmatic and
not always logical thesis.
It is Mr. Metcalf\'s contention that you can tell what words are likely to
survive by applying a simple formula involving what he calls the FUDGE
factors: the Frequency with which a new word is used; the Unobtrusiveness of
the new word, meaning its ability to slip unnoticed into daily usage without
calling attention to itself; Diversity of users and situations in which the
new word is employed; Generation of other forms and meanings (i.e.,
\"Watergate\" giving birth to \"Travelgate\" and \"Whitewatergate\"); and
Endurance of the concept, meaning that the idea to which the new word refers
proves durable over time (unlike, say, Y2K).
Other factors, Mr. Metcalf argues, do not matter much. It doesn\'t matter
whether a word is new: chad, for instance, had been around for ages before
achieving celebrity with the messy 2000 election standoff in Florida; in
contrast, a phrase like Saddam Hussein\'s \"mother of all\" locution was a new
formulation that quickly caught on.
While new creations or phenomena sometimes get a new name - like \"software\"
or \"affirmative action\" - gaps in the language are not always filled: a
compelling and widely embraced name for the first decade of the 21st century
has yet to be found, though many suggestions like \"the aughts,\" \"the
naughts,\" \"the zeros\" and \"the oh-ohs\'` have been floated. Nor does an
existing term for an idea or concept rule out the adoption of trendy new
phrases: running amok and going berserk, for instance, did not preclude the
introduction of \"going postal\" in the 1990\'s.
Intriguing as some of Mr. Metcalf\'s observations are, his overarching thesis
about predicting the staying power of new words remains unconvincing. In the
first place, he doesn\'t back up his theory with enough examples to make it
feel fully grounded. \"Predicting New Words\" seems highly cursory in the
extreme. It pays little attention to the role that popular culture has
played in promoting new words and phrases: no discussion of words from
movies like \"neuralizer\" (from \"Men in Black\") or \"hurl\" (given a popular
new meaning by \"Wayne\'s World\") and scant discussion of computer slang and
teenage talk as well.
In addition, some of the examples Mr. Metcalf cites in support of his thesis
are decidedly dubious. His citation of \"Frankenfood\" (\"a scary word for
genetically modified foods\") as \"a fairly successful new word\" is debatable
at best, as is his contention that the phrase \"sex kitten\" is obsolete.
Of the five FUDGE factors, he says, \"Unobtrusiveness seems especially
important.\" He argues that people use words to make jokes but don\'t want the
words themselves to be jokes: \"The more general principle is that a word
shouldn\'t call attention to itself, by humor or by any other means - its
looks or origin, for example. If it does attract notice, chances are it will
be rejected.\"
This principle, however, seems to be contradicted by some of the examples
Mr. Metcalf cites. \"Couch potato,\" for one, was a term based around the
comical image of a fat, dumpy creature perched on a sofa, all eyes on the
television, and wordplay stemming from a term for television aficionados:
\"tubers.\" As for \"gerrymander,\" it has roots in a 19th-century joke about
Eldridge Gerry, a Massachusetts governor who rearranged the election
districts in the state to the advantage of the Democratic party. Although
Mr. Metcalf argues that these words succeeded only when their jokey
beginnings were forgotten, the fact remains that they began life as humorous
constructions.
Words like \"googol\" and \"scofflaw\" challenge Mr. Metcalf\'s belief that
successful new words tend not to be conspicuous or bizarre. And his
assertion in one chapter that \"relatively few foreign words are directly
imported into our language with success\" because \"they look too foreign\" is
contradicted by his observation, in another chapter, that \"English is famous
for swallowing words whole from other languages.\"
One additional oddity of this book is the amount of space it devotes to
examples of ungrammatical language and plain old-fashioned gaffes, most
notably those made by President George W. Bush. Among the famous Bushisms
cited in this book are: his use of terms like \"mential\" (\"This is still a
dangerous world. It\'s a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential
mential losses\") and \"misunderestimate\" (\"They misunderestimated me\"), and
his substitution of \"hostile\" for \"hostage\" (\"We cannot let terrorists and
rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile\") and
\"anecdote\" for \"antidote\" (\"A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to
coming out of an economic illness\").
The problem is that in citing such examples, Mr. Metcalf is himself
confusing grammatical mistakes with innovation: just one of the stumbles in
this book that makes it a lot less persuasive than it might have been.
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| | | | aivars
আর্জেন্টিনা
Local time: 03:15
ইংরেজি থেকে স্প্যানিশ
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| language is an infectious disease | Jan 19, 2003 |
Jacek, now I realize that you are a specialist in introducing the toughest and most insightful questions.
As for this guy who pronounces exactly the opposite of what he wants to say, I think the whole thing explains itself with the concept of Freudian slip. When you are not being honest, what you really think slips through at times.
I would say that a word remains if somehow it becomes the best option to express an idea no matter how banal. There are expressions and words in ... See more Jacek, now I realize that you are a specialist in introducing the toughest and most insightful questions.
As for this guy who pronounces exactly the opposite of what he wants to say, I think the whole thing explains itself with the concept of Freudian slip. When you are not being honest, what you really think slips through at times.
I would say that a word remains if somehow it becomes the best option to express an idea no matter how banal. There are expressions and words in Spanish, I never use because to me they sound corny or too \"clumsy\" or else. But also, like memories, there are words that remain because we just can\'t avoid them. In those cases, language is a virus. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Maya Jurt
সুইজারল্যান্ড
Local time: 07:15
ফেঞ্চ/ফরাসি থেকে জার্মান
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| Higly recommended - by Jacek! | Jan 19, 2003 |
Thanks for drawing our attention to this book. I have not read it, but after reading Kakutani\'s critic, I am convinced that it would not only be fun to read it, but very instructive as well.
One may agree with the author or not, words, especially now words, are a delicacy for any linguist\'s palate.
This article on Metcalf lives up to the highest tradition of the critic. Demolish, because Kakutani would have surpassed the author had he had a chance and... See more Thanks for drawing our attention to this book. I have not read it, but after reading Kakutani\'s critic, I am convinced that it would not only be fun to read it, but very instructive as well.
One may agree with the author or not, words, especially now words, are a delicacy for any linguist\'s palate.
This article on Metcalf lives up to the highest tradition of the critic. Demolish, because Kakutani would have surpassed the author had he had a chance and time to write it yourself.
Therefore, Jacek, those lines are only praise. No critic would waste the time to demolish a book if it was not worth reading it.
Thank you for that. And congratulations!
Maya
[ This Message was edited by:on2003-01-19 21:54] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | A link to related info | Aug 1, 2003 |
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/cons/e97.htm#slang
Panel -- Future Slang: Inventing a New Language
How does one produce an idiom that can seem alien yet remain comprehensible?
It's easy to get it wrong: remember the Battlestar Galactica fleets that were microns apart?
Burgess invented the teenage slang for Clockwork Orange
Iain Banks hopes the slang in Feersum Endjinn evokes a feeling of being a child, with everything around being too big.
Brian Aldiss: "my Confluence language is a mixture of speech and posture" -- cf tonal Chinese. Iain Banks: "The Culture's stupid starship names were influenced by Confluence"
OED attributes many words to Shakespeare, and to Lewis Carroll (eg, 'chortle'). Brian Aldiss is credited with a 100 words and phrases -- "mainly disgusting ones". William Gibson invented many new words, for a technology that doesn't exist, and that he doesn't understand.
Jack Williamson, 1941: terraform
Robert Forward: scotty, for any space engineer
Robert Heinlein: waldo, grok
It's very difficult to invent new words, because they are new to the reader, too, and so don't have the right resonances. Iain Banks coined feeb, with (correct) resonances of dweeb and feeble.
A spoof article tries to show that all computer terminology is obscene, with its floppys, RAMs, peeking and poking. "And does anyone know what a Texas Instrument really is?"
Despite its Universal Translator, Star Trek has managed to spawn an alien language which people all over the planet can speak: Klingon. "It sounds like throat-clearing, or swearing. Why didn't they use Welsh?" "Probably more people speak Klingon than Welsh!" There's a Klingon course in Germany.
English has an awful lot of words -- most of which stay in the dictionary! People don't tend to say 'excellent' or 'superior', and certainly not 'double plus good', but instead 'mega good'. Is it because they are illiterate, or just because it sounds cool?
English is almost-universal. It provides a core language to a very broad and diverse range of peoples, plus many specialist sub-languages (which are what SF writers tend to invent). These are 'cultural dialects' rather than 'regional dialects'. "Jargon is a virtual dialect."
Calling an alien riding animal a 'horse', and then having it eat slugs, can give a better alien feel than calling it some word with lots of 'x's and 'h's.
The name-with-apostrophe has become a cliché. And is it supposed to be a glottal stop, or a click, or what?
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