Everybody who speaks English decides together what a word is and what
is not a word.
Every language is just a group of people who agree to understand each
other.
We are not taught the rules of grammar we just learn them.
Stealing words from other languages “borrowing”
Kumquat: Chinese
Compounding: squashing together two words in the English Language
Blend words! : Motel, Brunch. ELECTROCUTE: Electric/Execute
Functional shift: Take a word from one part of speech and repurpose it.
I.e. Friend used to be a noun (we ‘verbed’ it)
Backformation: Editor came before Edit. Bulldozers bulldoze. Burglars burgle.
ABREVIATE! NASA! OMG!
Every word is a chance to express a new idea and get your meaning
across!
The English language has no age limit!
No comments:
Post a Comment