Neologist

[Dave Monroe]

This week's theme: words about words.

neologist (nee-OL-uh-gist) noun

   One who coins, uses, or introduces new words, or
redefines old words in a language.

[From French néologisme, from Greek neo- (new) + -logy
(science, study).]

Today's word in Visual Thesaurus:
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=neologist

   A language grows by infusion of new words. Anyone
who has been on the Internet for more than a few days
knows what a webmaster is. Yet only a few years ago if
we came across a "webmaster", we wouldn't know what
that person did for a living.

   There are many ways to coin words. You can make
words out of thin air:
   googol, a word for a very large number (1 followed
by 100 zeros) was coined by a nine-year-old boy. It
was the inspiration behind the naming of the Google
search engine.

   You can redefine old words. The Google name, in
turn, became genericized as a verb meaning to search
for something, not necessarily on the Web.

   You can sandwich two existing words (web + master)
or you can fuse them together: lexpert (lex + expert),
someone who is an expert in words.
   Such an amalgamated word is also known as a
portmanteau (from French, meaning a bag for carrying
clothes, one that opens on two sides) since Lewis
Carroll gave them this moniker in his 1872 classic
"Through the Looking-Glass". Carroll himself coined
some great portmanteaux, such as chortle (chuckle +
snort), and slithy (slimy + lithe).

   Coining words is easy. Getting them into a
dictionary, now that's a topic for another time.

-Anu Garg (gargATwordsmith.org)

  "But as Esther notes, the word 'afghan' has acquired
connotations in the last year that it didn't always
have. She could start referring to 'blankets,' Esther
says. But those tend to be machine-made, and Esther
the afghan-maker isn't a machine. So Esther has
invited Levey's neologists to think up a more
appropriate word."
   Bob Levey; Neighborliness Gone; The Washington
Post; Aug 28, 2002.


Looking for a word/quotation previously featured in
AWAD? Archives are at
http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html

Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/neologist.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/neologist.ram

Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/neologist.html


		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com