The top 50 neolosisms and their analysis

 

We present the top 50 neologisms in the following table, the data is collected on the 5^th of February, 2004 on Wordspy site.

Now we present the table, where words are arranged according the popularity first of all, the earliest citation, the short definition, the word-building type, the sphere of usage are presented.

We had 50 most frequently used neologisms to investigate at our disposal, it is clear that it is only a small portion of new coined words we could use, but for the convenience and the accuracy of the analysis only these words were taken. Nevertheless, even these words can prompt us about the contemporary processes in the language, and we can distinguish the most productive ways of new words to appear and the main spheres where they are needed. We can determine the major trends in the neology as well.

Culture – General-11, Food and Drink -2, Television-2, Health and Fitness-3.

Sociology – General-22, Gay and Lesbian-3, Pregnancy and Parenting -5, Men and Women-9,

Computers – General-5, Internet – 6, Hacking and Hackers-3, Wareless-3, E-mail-3

Technology – General-3, Cell Phones-4

The World – Crime-3, General -1, Politics -3,

Science – General-4, Biology-2, Psychology-4

Business – General-2, Money -1

Language – General-4

Word building means is the first thing we will do research into analyzing the chart of the most popular neologisms. According to it we can mark that the word composition and sense development are the most productive ways of coining new words. According to structural types of words, two motivating bases are employed while forming words by word composition. For instance, the word neurotheology has two clear bases, they are neuro – and – theology. Judging by the result it’s the most common way as is ‘the easiest’, as soon as you use the already existing words and put them together.

Sense development is employed when a new meaning is acquired by the already existing word, that is what we call semantic word building type. In the age of globalization, developed social links and hi-tech events, mankind needs names for them and there is a big number of such cases, as in the word quiet party along with the word composition, this type is used, words (composites of the word) are commonly known, but while analyzing we can clearly see that sense development is engaged to coin this neologism.

Blending is less popular, cases, like hathos, the blend of hate and pathos is marked.

Such types as affixation, acronimization (kippers – from «kids in parents' pockets eroding retirement savings») turned out to be not very productive. It can be explained by various reasons – 1) elaboration in forming, 2) difficulty in predicting (decoding) the information.

It is clear that more than 40% of the neologisms appeared in the nineties, it can be explained by the sudden jump in computer technologies and the more evident results of the sexual revolution. In the eighties, 24% of the new words were coined, that was more or less a stable period of the contemporary society. As for the 2000–2004, for this period more than 36% of the neologisms were built. That is the richest period, as the progress became faster, as well as, the time itself.

It’s the first time new words were fixed in newspapers. Such tabloids, as The INDEPENDENT (London), Chicago TRIBUNE, THE WASHINGTON POST, The AUSTRALIAN, CANADIAN Issues are the productive sources. The Internet sites give birth to the numerous words which deal with technologies, for instance, the esato.com gave life to the word BLUEJACKING. Not only English speaking countries tabloids are among the sources, THE JERUSALEM POST «bore» the floortime, etc. Some other local newspapers like THE DENVER POST, FLORIDA TIMES, THE TORONTO STAR, THE NATION, etc. can also be called the sources. Issues, discussed at conferences (Digital Rights Management Conference) can be the reasons for the new words appearance (darknet) as well.

With the development of the society and the sexual revolution, which is still going on, new forms of relations between sexes and within family, new types of sex social status appeared. This sphere has got more new notions than ever before, since now people can easily change their sex and sexual orientation (gay and lesbian topic). Gaydar (an interesting composition Gay+ Dar, denoting a special sense while identifying gay from a straight person) or straight supermacist (a person who assumes that all heterosexuals are innately superior than homosexuals and they don’t have the right to be equally treated under the law) Moreover, there are new types of family forms and relations which explains the appearance of words, such as manny – male nanny, is a clear case in point.

Men and women links are also of interest, ¼ of all new notions (according to our investigation) make up in this sphere. Irritable Male Syndrome (-anger and irritableness in men caused by a sudden drop in testosterone levels, particularly when brought on by stress or the word) men breasts (excess fatty tissue that causes a man's chest to resemble a woman's breasts) show us how men begin to resemble a woman more and more, physically and psychologically. Or take for example, a metrosexual individual, who spends much money on his appearance and lifestyle.

The second richest branch is Computer. New computer technologies give rise to new words. Most of them are connected with the Internet and E – mail, as the Internet offers us more and more opportunities, as well as, all computer technologies. Software in many people’s lifetime has been mostly a wonderful way to live, because we're just learning how to do it and anybody with some time and talent and initiative can try out any crazy idea. We have so much processing power and so much memory and such great tools and we still fail, most times, to produce things that are fun to use. Neologisms like, GOOGLE, «spIM» became an indispensable part of Internet users’ speech. One can google and find any information he or she needs and the other gets spIM every time he or she uses Instant Messenger.

Culture sphere is developing along with the society, that is why it is the third richest. Television and food and drink branches have more fresh words, than ever now, and again, it is connected with the technological and social development. Individuals suffer from passive over-eating, that is the excessive eating of foods that are high in fat because the human body is slow to recognize the caloric content of rich foods; eating whatever is put in front of you, even to the point of discomfort. The ground for it all is the change of the life rhythm – shortage of time.

Science is the forth richest, new sciences and discoveries are made in this sphere – that is neurotheology, for example.

Technology and The world have the equal number, in the Technology branch, more than a half of all new words are connected with cell phones. The majority of civilized people have «cellys» to save time and money. Some have problems with BLUEJACKING while standing in a line in the supermarket (temporally hijacking another person’s cell phone by sending anonymousmessages using the Bluetooth system). Or one can make 911 butt call, that is definitely is not worth responding to.

Business and language are less influenced, these spheres are more or less stable, business – is because it is the matter of money. Market succeeds in creating immense quantities of (unevenly distributed) wealth, lifting people out of rural poverty and urban slums, in arranging that most people have jobs, that most things that are built that are needed, and the most things that are needed are built. These are not small accomplishments. Also, it can be marked that business is often a filthy practice. It encourages both vile venial and monstrous mortal sin, all as an organic consequence of the competitive marketplace. That explains our statistics, we have three new words, connected with this topic, and one of them deals with crime – 419 scam (fraud, making people pay money, which hope to get more later, the numbers «419» is the number of the law, prosecuting this type of a crime). The other word deals with the stock market – dead cat bounce (a temporary recovery from a major drop in a stock's price).

Language, is the sphere which is really flexible and prone to changes, but still people need more or less stable language system to communicate. New words in this sphere are kippers (an acronym) and himbo (an insult) or hathos (feelings of pleasure derived from hating someone or something), they are a rare case in point.

As we can see 18 out of 50 words have new forms, some of the new-coined words have developed a paradigm of even three parts of speech, some only one. In most cases words have a noun as another part of speech, like in words neurotheology, the new form is neurotheologian or metrosexual – metrosexuality, also straight supremacist – straight supremacy. As for creating the adjectives, we have such examples, as hathos – hathotic, or spim – antispim and lipstick lesbian – lipstick with a suffix – ic highly employed. Verbs are also common: bluejacking – to bluejack, manscaping – to manscape, flash mob-to flash mob. Neologisms like, spim, flash mob are the brightest representatives to show how productive the words can be, they have a noun, a verb, an adjective and even they have a plural form – flash mobs, for example. Few words have a plural form. These facts show that while speaking sometimes people have to converse words into a different part of speech. The bigger paradigm of morphological forms the word develops the more probability it will have to survive for a while and even stay in the language. The reason for this event is that these new notions as well as words are gradually becoming the essential part of the civilized world.

According to our statistics, most words acquire a new meaning rather than a new word appears with a new notion. This can be explained by the fact, that there is not enough, we would say proper, words to express all the variety of newly created and used notions in the rapidly changing world.

New meaning were acquired when two (as it may seem) incompatible words are composed and a new word appears. For instance, words like, quiet party or global dimming, time porn were not of primary importance, moreover, there were not used and were not actual, if we take for example, the seventies or eighties of the 20^th century. These things simply did not exist, or were not popular to the same extent as they are now. Or the word does not change at all, just the new meaning is implied – kidnap.

As for the simultaneous new notions and words creation, we can note, that they were created whether by acronimization (kipper) or blending (pomosexual, hathos), those are the most productive and the simplest ways to imply two or more meanings, expressing some fresh ideas, in one word.

 

 

Conclusion

 

In our work, we tried to give a full presentation if all aspects of such a linguistic event as neology in connection with word building means. We performed a complete analysis of 50 most popular neologisms according to the word building type, sphere of usage, to the source and time of appearance, ability to create new forms, new notion appearance.

As a literary concept and term, neologism appeared in the 18^th century and its old meaning was synonymous to «barbarism». In the modern meaning of neologism appeared early in the 19^th century and, gained the acceptance towards the end of the century. Nowadays around 4000 words enter English vocabulary every year which reflects the fast development of the language and makes the phenomena interesting to analyze.

We also tackled a problem of the cultural acceptance. There is no criterion for judging how long the neologism takes to be accepted by the public. If it does, it is not the point though, because the reason why it becomes recognized is of more importance.

The classification of word building means also presented in our investigation, based on the structural principle (one or two motivating bases) in the first place. The words which have one motivating base are usually formed by derivation with the help of affixes and zero-derivation (conversion), which is the process of turning a word in a different part of speech and with a different distribution characteristic but without adding any derivational element (n. silence – v. to silence). The second type of word building means employs two motivating bases (compounding), which is a convenient and laconic way to express some ideas, comprised in one word. Minor types of word building include shortening, acronymy, blending.

Shortening that consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, as a result the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own, blends that combine two words and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element. Acronymy is the process of creating new words when only initial letters are taken. These above mentioned means are frequently used in the sphere of technology and politics as well as everyday language (girlfriend – g.f.), the reason is ever-growing life rhythm, when maximum information should be transferred in a minimum time, the described types are the most suitable in this case, which also explains their high productivity. The semantic word building, which is any semantic change in the word meaning, it deals with sense development, and can be also treated as one of the sources of neologisms.

Recent investigations seem to prove that productivity of derivational means is relative in many prospects, and as a conclusion we can say that there are no absolutely productive means. Conversion is popular due to its simplicity and convenience; one doesn’t have to add any affixes to create a new word.

In our work we also dealt with problems concerning the sources of new words as neologisms emerge every day and so fast that dictionaries can not keep up with. While the dictionaries wait for years for the words to be fit to be published, the World Wide Web is acting more efficiently to bring these words to life. Wordspy (creator Paul McFedries) is one of the largest sites keeping track of emerging vocabulary of the English language. We used the data from this site to analyze (50 most popular (frequently used) neologisms), collected in February 2004.

We took these words to determine the major trends in the growing vocabulary; the words were analyzed according to

- the source and time of appearance,

- to the word building type,

- to the sphere of usage,

- to the ability to create new words,

- to the new notion appearance.

The period, which is rich in neologisms, is the nineties, due to rapid change in social relations and hi-tech developments. But as the processes became faster, more new words were coined, the «richest» (36%) time (at the beginning of the XXI century. The major source is Media, tabloids as well as locals, in particular (The Independent, The Washington Post). The Internet also plays a determinative role in forming new words.

Most neologisms in our work were formed whether by word composition or sense development (more than 80%), which are the ‘easiest’, as one doesn’t have to invent anything new, just combining two words together or implying a new meaning to an old word. Minor word building types (blending, acronimization) are less employed. That happens due to the flash-like rhythm of modern life.

While analyzing spheres of usage, we came to such a conclusion, that the most, as we can say, renewable branch is that of sociology (45 referencesout of 113), as it is the most developing sphere of the human life at this point. A great number of the new words deal with men and women relationships, as well as, with homosexual affairs, as a result of the sexual revolution.

The more active usage of the computer and computer technologies (20 references out of 113) give rise to more new words connected with this topic, the same can be applied to the mobile/cell phones, they are more employed and thus have more functions, which results in the appearance of new words.

We can also reckon that the bigger number of neologism has paradigms (36%), that shows – the words are more employed and are being accepted by the language.

More words just acquire new meaning; as a result, a new word is born (46%). The ‘old’ words were not used in a present meaning, due to its previous non – necessity.

As a total issue, we can mark, that the enlargement of the English language vocabulary, as well as any other language, is closely connected with the humans’ social life. Every new event in our life finds its reflection in the language, and the faster the life is the simpler the ways, thanks to which our language is enlarged.

 

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