Three New Words:
Description of the Assignment

1. The first mini-task is to bring to class (due-date Tuesday of third week) three examples of new words found in popular culture but not yet in any dictionary. A good place to look is in advertisements and in popular journalism such as tabloid magazines, People Magazine ``Zines" of various sorts, etc. For background on this word-formation process, consult a web document I have prepared on this: Lexical Change
   
   

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   Please write a short paragraph for each item, giving at least the following information:
   
   

   Document your sources; check out your background information

   
   
   1. What the origin of it is, e.g. the pieces, or the initials, or whatever; if there are recognizable pieces (like the -oid of `android') look them up in a dictionary; some dictionaries will give these `pieces' of meaning, even though they're not full `words', since they're used in chemistry etc. You can look in the Van Pelt Library's Reference Shelf section, and see the Oxford English Dictionary Online: OED Online . Or try the Webster's Third International on-line dictionary, which is more oriented toward American usage.

   2. Document your background checking to show that it is in fact not in any dictionary: (To check whether it's found in any dictionary, look in a standard dictionary such as Merriam-Webster's; or see the following source: Fifty Years Among the New Words.) Or go to the OED Online

   3. To show that the item is in fact in use (and you didn't make it up) do a web-search for it, and show where and how it is used even if it's not in the dictionary.

   4. What to look for: Look for examples that involve `acronyms' or `blends' such as brand-names like kleenex (clean + ?ex) or drano (drain + ?o) or drorganizer (dr[awer] + organizer). Another possibility is abbreviations of longer words, sometimes even abbreviations that make a rhyming-pair, such as sci-fi from sci[ence] + fi[ction] (Just for fun, here's a list of 'fun' words published by the Washington Post. Some are blends, some are puns, some are puns on echo-words...)

   5. Tell me why you think the originator picked the pieces they did, or formed it the way they did. Does the item rhyme with some other word that evokes some other meaning? Is it supposed to sound scientific or evoke some other attributes that the promoter thinks will help sell it?

   6. Tell me where you heard or found this word: e.g. you heard it from your roommate, or on TV or the radio or other media; it's a brand-name or it's a new technical term or whatever. State exactly where you saw/found it, with page numbers, dates, etc. please.

   7. If you want examples of what I'm looking for, look at these examples of papers submitted in past years that admirably fill the bill.
      
      

   8. Last but not least, here's an example of a hot new item: -izzle which isn't exactly a new word, but is being used as a sort of suffix by rap artists, etc.

   
   

   The importance of following directions...

   
   The purposes of this exercise are:
   • To make you see how one kind of innovation in language operates, and how little there is that is actually brand-new .
     
   • To accustom you to the notion that there are deadlines to observe, and that if your work isn't acceptable the first time, it can be done again.
   • To get you to see that even in something this simple and unserious, there can be scholarly ways of operating and doing research: careful documentation, control of sources, checking of origins, etc.
     
   • To get you used to following directions.
     

    

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Some resources on the Internet