Vocabulary

Among other things, one aspect that helps English grow at such a steady pace is its extensive use in specialised areas, such as science, medicine, technology and the internet. Naturally, whenever a need arises to express new ideas or define new objects, new vocabulary is born.

In this final part in the series, you will read about three more ways in which new words and phrases get added to the language. 

7. Clipping

Clipping refers to the act of shortening a longer word, quite often making it monosyllabic. For instance, a website where an individual, or an organisation, adds details about recent events or topics of interest was originally called a ‘weblog’ before it got shortened to ‘blog’.

Quite often clipped words gain in popularity, consigning the original words or phrases into oblivion. When was the last time you heard someone say they had ‘influenza’?  The clipped version of the word, ‘flu’, is what you’re likely to hear them say! 

8. Abbreviation

Abbreviations, which are short forms of words or phrases, frequently enter the dictionary as new words. One good thing about them is that the average person can use them accurately without having to understand what the initial letters represent. Not everyone who talks about DVDs, for example, is aware of what the initial letters stand for: digital versatile disc.

Oftentimes abbreviations that get popular in quick time tend to be acronyms. They are short forms made using the first letters of the words that make up a name, and they can be pronounced as words. An acronym that pops up regularly when we talk about supermarkets is BOGOF (buy one get one free).      

9. New words

If you were to take a close look at all new words coined in English in recent times, it will quickly dawn on you that most of them have some language feature that we’re already familiar with. As surprising as this may sound, entirely new words that enter English each year are very few in number. An original word such as ‘google’ is a rare sight indeed.

Even though hundreds of words get coined every year, not all of them manage to survive for too long. The survival of new vocabulary depends on frequency of use. Clearly, if a concept becomes obsolete over time, then words representing it will very soon diminish in use and invariably disappear. 

So, in 2035, will we all still ‘Facebook’our friends? Well, your guess is as good as mine!

Read our previous blog posts about how new English words are born: Part 1 and Part 2

Visit the British Council’s Learn English website.

The ability of English to evolve constantly as a language can be put down to several factors, one being that native speakers of the language relish playing with it, resulting in new vocabulary being invented all the time.

Of course, not all new words make it into the dictionary; nor do they manage to stay put if they get listed, for that matter. In a previous post we spoke about some ways in which new English words are born; here are some more ways in which new words enter the English language. 

3. Blending

Blending is the process of creating a new word, called a blend or portmanteau word, by combining parts of existing words. This method of coining new words by putting together the beginning of one word and the end of another has been around for centuries now. Even though there are no hard and fast rules about how to form a blend, it is noticeable that at least one of the words involved in the fusion has something chopped off it. Here are some examples of blends.

4. Conversion

This refers to the method of changing a word from one word class (e.g. noun, verb, adjective, adverb) to another. To put it another way, a new word can be formed by simply changing the grammatical function of an existing word. So, the next time you say that you will email or download something, think about this: you are using English words that originally began life as nouns. 

Here are some more nouns that later became verbs: friend, bomb, email, text, elbow, blog, lace, chair, drink, divorce, intern, model, voice.

5. Back-formation

When we form words with back-formation, we chop off a part of an already existing word that is considered to be an affix. This method is most commonly employed to make verbs out of nouns. 

6. Loanwords

Perhaps the most straightforward way to create new words is to borrow them from other languages. Over the years, English has borrowed generously from other languages, some of which are Latin, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Hindi. When English speakers come across a word in a foreign language that describe something that they don’t yet have a word for, they tend to borrow it. Here are some popular loanwords:

Do not forget to read the final part in this series if you wish to know about some more methods of inventing new words.

Visit the British Council’s Learn English website.

English has to be the most dynamic language around, forever evolving and adapting to the needs of its users. Year by year a great number of words enter the language, while some others leave. The marked rate at which English has expanded in recent years is a good indication that it has managed to keep pace with changing times and technology.

Having a basic understanding of how new words are created can be handy. If you know how new words enter the language, you will be better placed to identify strategies to help you cope with new language. Let us take a closer look at some ways in which new English words are born:

1. Affixation

A letter or a group of letters, known as an affix, can be added to the beginning or end of a word to make new words that express new ideas. This method of using a prefix (affix added at the beginning) or suffix (affix added at the end) to create new words is called affixation.  

As you can see, it isn’t too difficult to work out the meaning of such words, as prefixes and suffixes are often attached to words that already have known definitions. However, prefixes don’t usually change the word class of the words they modify (e.g. cycle, tricycle → noun), whereas suffixes often change the form entirely (e.g. explore → verb, explorer → noun). 

2. Compounding

Compounding is the process of making up a fresh word by joining two or more independent words. Although compounds are found in all word classes, the most common types are nouns. Here are some examples:

When existing words are combined to form a compound, it could sometimes carry a meaning that is different to what the individual parts convey. The noun fur baby, for instance, refers to a person’s pet animal with fur, such as a cat or dog, especially when it receives the kind of love and attention that a child would receive from its parent. 

The next couple of parts in this series will introduce you to more types of word formation.

Visit the British Council’s Learn English website.