Word Coinage

Word Coinage

            As we have seen above, new words may be added to the vocabulary or lexicon of language by derivational processes. New words may also enter a language in a variety of other ways. Some are created outright to fit some purpose. Madison Avenue has added many new words to English, such as Kodak, nylon, Orlon, and Dacron. Specific brand names such as Xerox, Kleenex, jell-o, Frigidaire, Brillo, and Vaseline are now sometimes used as the general name for different brands of these same types of products. Notice that some of these words were created from existing words: Kleenex from the words clean and jell-o from gel, for example.

Compounds

New words may be formed by stringing together other words to create compound words. There is almost no limit on the kinds of combinations that occur in English, as can be seen by the examples in the following list of compounds:

                                    -Adjective                               -Noun                          -Verb

Adjective-                   Bittersweet                              poorhouse                    highborn

Noun-                          headstrong                              rainbow                       spoonfeed

Verb-                           carryall                                    pickpocket                   sleepwalk

           

Note that Frigidaire is a compound formed by combining the adjective frigid with the noun air.  When the two words are in the same grammatical category, the compound will be in this category: noun + noun – girlfriend, fighter-bomber, paperclip, elevator-operator, landlord, and mailman; adjective + adjective – icy-cold, red-hot, worldly-wise. In many cases, when the two words fall into different categories the class of the second or final words will be the grammatical category of the compound: noun + adjective – headstrong, watertight, lifelong; verb + noun – pickpocket, pinchpenny, daredevil, sawbones. This is not always true; compound formed with a preposition are in the category of the nonprepositional part of the compound: overtake, hanger-on, undertake, backdown, afterbirth, downfall, uplift.

Tough two-word compounds are the most common in English, it would be difficult to state an upper limit: three-time loser, four-dimensional space time, sergeant-at-arms, mother-of-pearl, man about town, master of ceremonies, and daughter-in-law.