Vocabulary 2.0: Smart Words of the 21st Century

VOCABULARY 2.0

Smart Words of the 21St Century

Dr Shoba KN

Notion Press

5, Muthu Kalathy St.

Triplicane

Chennai – 600005

© Dr Shoba KN, 2014

ISBN: 978-93-8404-91-57

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

For the three men of my life

Raj, Krrish and Harshil

The media, the internet and the phenomenon of social sharing of information which are trendy as well as futuristic have given rise to new words which every citizen of the 21 s t century need to know. Similarly, new coinages in the world of business and corporateship have hit newstands and attracted people’s attention out of the academia. Thus keeping track of and explaining new business vocabulary can be a challenge for professional English teachers. Finding and evaluating new words to be used in daily vocabulary can encourage the expansion, the flexibility and constant regeneration of the language. The meaning of some words can be predictable and they describe a situation better than existing vocabularies. Take a word like creditcru n ch – it indicates a downturn in the Japanese economy and has become widely used in the last two years to describe the current global slowdown. Cred i tcru n ch is not a newly minted term and it was coined by economists a few decades ago. This makes the important point that words considered ‘new’ doesn’t necessarily mean that they are brand-new to the language, though many are, but that they are newly important to teachers and students of the English language. The reputation of a new word today grows at the rate of a fraction of the time, it would have taken a hundred or even fifty years ago.

None can deny the Protean nature of English language. Though we all speak different tongues, English, the language has opened up new worlds of possibilities and opportunities – learning for knowledge, skill or profession. It has become more than a tool for communication. It offers a fertile space to express our thoughts, dreams, wants, yearnings and the necessity to constantly innovate, deconstruct, and render new meanings to existing or established forms of expression.

The inherent need to constantly renovate or revamp, or even interrogate accepted structures of thought patterns in human beings is one among many reasons for the language to grow and accumulate new words at a rate that cannot be predicted. It is well known that English has a humongous bank of words which has been borrowed, they do not possess a foreign aura about them but have been assimilated well into the English language. The spheres of history, science, technology, politics, money have all induced loads of new words into its currency and such words have been bees in the bonnets for language enthusiasts. One of the things I most enjoy about being an English teacher is discovering, evaluating and documenting new words in the English language.

Neologism as a discipline is gaining momentum in the fields of linguistics, lexicology and language learning. From avid learners ranging from school students to aspirers of competitive examinations in English language and even lexico-scholars turn heads when a new word is uttered. They spread the word about the new kid in the block, expose it in the right time at the right place.

This book is intended to help the student, the teacher and the amateur enthusiast who love to keep up with changing times. The English language is notoriously fast in adapting to the changing world. New words enter the language which describe the developments that take place day to day. The language is therefore permanently evolving and developing. New words and expressions are coined and existing words change their meanings as society, culture and technology progress. The language is already an enormous warehouse of over 600,000 words. Despite this large arsenal, we continue to coin, clip and blend new words into existence. Dictionaries constantly update, add new words to reflect the vibrant changes in language and culture.

Language changes so quickly that it is hard to keep up. A book like this can come in handy in such changing times. A living language gives birth to new words, it bestows novel meanings upon old words, it borrows words from foreign tongues – it modifies its usages to gain directness and to achieve speed. The irrepressible conflict between stability and mutation and between authority and independence can be observed at all epochs in the evolution of all languages.

The man in the street is likely to have a relish for verbal novelty and even for verbal eccentricity and the man in the library is likely to be a staunch upholder of good old ways. In the 17th and 18th century, a general belief that a language ought to be fixed, made stable and forbidden to modify itself in any way. They were more familiar with the dead languages in which usage is petrified. To ‘fix’ a living language is finally a dream if implemented can be a dire calamity. Luckily language is never in the control of scholars. It does not belong to them alone, as they are inclined to believe. Brander Mathews, an expert on the subject, commented it belongs to all who have it as a mother tongue. Contradicting this, today any language, for that matter, belongs to every person who uses it.

When a population finds itself in a standstill because it lacks new words to name new things, it has to supply itself in a hurry. It makes the new word it needs and when it feels the need, it has no time to submit the extemporized term to revision by a committee of scholars. The new word can be made in the library or laboratory, in the mall or in the street - it may be well made or ill made. Sometimes modern clichés become new words.

Six important factors have to be considered for understanding the survival of a new word. They are:

• Trendiness of the word – affability in usage

• The usefulness of the word

• The exposure range of the word

• Potential associations and extensions

• The durability of the subject

If a new word fulfills these criteria, then it stands a very good chance of inclusion in the modern lexicon.

When to use Neologisms?

Before using a new word, here are a few tips to bear in mind. Also consider the audience group, the subject in discussion, the actual need of the word, etc.

• Is it likely to pass the test of time?

• If not, are you simply using it to show off how cool you are?

• Has it already become a cliché?

• Does it do a job no other word or expression does just as well?

• Does it rob the language of a useful or a well-liked word?

• Is it being adapted to make the communication sharper, crisper, more euphonious and easier to understand?

Techniques used in Coining Neologisms

Blending Portmanteau words are the order of the day. This book presents a range of new words that are formed by clubbing two existing words. One of the many compensating charms of the often infuriating English language is the ease with which speakers and writers may exercise creativity and inventiveness. One of its most inventive components is the portmanteau word — one formed by combining two words into a single (and often deprecating and/or ironically humorous) term that denotes a new concept, or one for which a satisfactory term was heretofore unavailable. Here are few such terms, their parent words, and their meanings.

• Affluenza (affluence/influenza): anxiety or dissatisfaction caused by submission to consumerism

• Anacronym (anachronism/acronym): an acronym derived from a phrase no longer widely known (for example, radar)

• Anticipointment (anticipation/disappointment): the letdown after hype gives way to reality

• Backronym (back/acronym): a word presented as an acronym after the fact (for example, the name of the car brand Ford was derisively backronymed to stand for Fix Or Repair Daily) or mistakenly believed to be an acronym (the Morse code distress signal is erroneously said to stand for Save Our Souls)

• Blaxploitation (black/exploitation): a genre of pulp entertainment — most prevalent during the 1970s, when African American culture began to permeate US society — that exploits clichés about black people

• Bodacious (bold/audacious): insolent or unrestrained, extraordinary or impressively large, or extremely attractive

• Celebutant(e)(celebrity/debutant(e)): someone famous for being famous, with no apparent talent except self-promotion

• Chillax (chill/relax): behave, calm down, or relax

• Cocacolonization (Coca-Cola/colonization): the aggressive introduction or pervasive influence of American consumerism on other cultures

• Cosplay (costume/play): wearing costumes and accessories that resemble those of characters from various forms of popular culture, or the subculture that engages in cosplay

• Craptacular (crap/spectacular): entertainment so poor in quality as to be ironically captivating, or hyped but ultimately disappointing

• Edutainment (education/entertainment): educational material presented in a format intended to attract with its entertainment value)

• Frankenfood (Frankenstein/food): genetically modified food

• Frenemy (friend/enemy): a supposed friend whose actions and/or behavior are characteristic of a foe

• Gaydar (gay/radar): the ability to identify a person as a homosexual based on observation of the person’s appearance and/or behavior

• Ginormous (gigantic/enormous): huge

• Infotainment (information/entertainment): information presented in a format intended to attract with its entertainment value

• Interrobang (interrogative/bang): a combination question mark and exclamation point

• McMansion (McDonalds/mansion): a blandly generic large house

• Metrosexual (metropolitan/heterosexual): a man who appears to be inordinately concerned about personal aesthetics and/or is perceived for this quality as being homosexual

• Mockumentary (mock/documentary): a feature film that spoofs the documentary form

• Netocracy (Internet/aristocracy): an elite demographic distinguished by facility with technology and online networking

• Screenager (screen/teenager): the typical adolescent who indulges excessively in screen entertainment

• Shopaholic (shop/alcoholic): someone addicted to shopping

A portmanteau word, as described by Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, is (inspired by the word for a suitcase with two opposite compartments) a case of two meanings packed up into one word. Many such terms, most of which are in the mainstream vocabulary — and some of which are not widely recognized as invented terms — already exist.

More mundane portmanteau words represent dual ideas in many contexts, including entertainment (cineplex, docudrama, infomercial), sports (heliskiing, parasailing, slurve), and technology (avionics, camcorder, pixel), as well as hybridization of breeds or species (cockapoo, jackalope, liger).

Some older examples include electrocution (electricity/execution), motel(motor/hotel), motorcade (motor/cavalcade), prissy ( prim/sissy, though it may be simply a variation of precise), rollicking (rolling/frolicking), and ruckus(ruction, rumpus).

Clipping Clipped forms, shortened abbreviations of words, have a checkered history. Some are acceptable in formal writing, and others aren’t. When writing in academic contexts, in business writing, or another formal environment, take note of the status of these common clipped forms:

• Ad: In formal writing, the full form, advertisement, is usually employed.

• Bra: This clipped form of brassiere, from the French word for bodice (its euphemistic meaning: arm protector), has supplanted the longer form in all but the most stiffly formal writing.

• Burger: If ever a reference to this fast food staple makes its way into formal writing, the short form of hamburger is just as likely to appear as the long form.

• Bus: Omnibus (Latin for all), a word for a horse-drawn public-transportation conveyance, gave the right of way to its short form around the time such vehicles became motorized.

• Copter: The full form, helicopter, is best for formal writing.

• Deli: Though this word has been in use for at least a half century, delicatessen, from the German word fordelicacies, is best for formal usage.

• Exam: Examination was clipped back in the late 1800s and has long since been used even in formal writing.

• Flu: The short form of influenza (Italian for influence, from the medieval supposition that illness was the result of celestial perturbations) is several hundred years old and has long been acceptable even in formal medical texts.

• Fridge: This term, unusual not only in that the full form, refrigerator, has been clipped at both ends but also in that the spelling has been altered to reflect the pronunciation, is suitable for informal writing only.

• Gas: Gasoline is much more likely to appear in formal writing than its clipped form.

• Gator: This clipped form of alligator, in spite of its nearly 200-year-old tenure in the English language, is considered slang.

• Gym: Most formal references to a school building for athletic activities will use the full form, gymnasium, which many patrons might be amused to learn stems from the Greek word for naked, because athletes in ancient Greece trained and competed nude. Because Greek gymnasiums were centers of intellectual education as well, the full term is often used in Europe to refer to what might in the United States be called a preparatory school (which, by the way, has its own clipped form: prep school).

• Memo: So pervasive is this clipped form of memorandum that many people may not even know its origins. (The full word ultimately derives from the Latin for memory.)

• Movie: Even more taken for granted than memo is this diminutive form of moving picture, which, if you step back from it, may appear silly looking and juvenile. Formal writing often refers to the medium as film or cinema, but movie is also acceptable.

• Phone: The original term, telephone, is still often used in formal writing, but the clipped form is just as likely to be used.

• Plane: Plane has become as acceptable as airplane in formal writing.

• Pro: Professional, the full form, is the preferred usage in formal contexts.

• Quake: This clipped form of earthquake is, despite long usage, still considered informal.

• Tie: The full form, necktie, is all but obsolete. (Perhaps the clothing accessory will be, too, before long.)

• Typo: This slang for typographical error is over a century old but is still considered substandard usage.

Now on to the words themselves.

Abreevs

Abreevs is the coolest way to say a word, derived from abbreviation. They are usually used between close friends, abreevs denote the clipped words which are partially spoken instead of using the full word. The word ‘awkward’ is pronounced as awk or kward. Such abreevs can vary from region to region from school to school. The effect of the modern texting methods can be witnessed in the spoken forms too. This new lingo employs the method of just cutting the end of any word. Popular abreevs include ‘legit’ for ‘legitimate.’ ‘Whatevs’ for whatever,