Introducing English Linguistics

Borrowing
is a process by which a language receives a word directly
from another language, usually as a result of contact with the language.
Although English has borrowed heavily from Latin, Greek, and French,
other languages have contributed vocabulary as well:
Old Norse (many words beginning with the sounds /sk/): skirt, sky, skin,
scrape
German: blitz, kindergarten, hamburger, strudel, dachshund
Arabic: coffee, alcohol, jar, jihad, albatross, giraffe, hashish
Yiddish: bagel, schlep, schmooze, schmaltz, chutzpah
Chinese: chow mein, chopstick, ginseng, tycoon, tai chi, kung fu
Spanish: avocado, barrio, taco, mosquito, mesa, adobe
Many languages resist borrowing vocabulary from other languages.
However, English has historically been very receptive to borrowing.
The remaining word formation processes have contributed relatively few
words to English. Functional shift involves changing the part of speech of
a word rather than its form. Thus, bottle in the sentence The woman bottles
her own beer results from changing bottle from a noun to a verb. Other exam-
ples of nouns being converted to verbs include man and impact:
The sessions are being manned by a team 
(CIC)
The article was a review of process developments over the years and the
way changing technology has impacted on fuel design.
(BNC HPB 207)
The search engine Google has seen its name converted into a verb so that
now one sees examples such as I googled myself on the Internet.
The search engine name Google is based on the word googol, a word with a
very interesting history. In its entry for this word, Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary, Unabridged notes that googol was “coined by Milton
Sirotta, nine-year-old nephew of Dr. Edward Kasner” and designates 10
100
(unabridged.merriam-webster.com, accessed April 13, 2008). Because googol
is an invented word – one with no prior linguistic history – it is known as a
root creation. Root creations can be “echoic,” as McArthur (1992: 876) notes,
and include words such as cuckoo, zap, and splash. They can also be trade
names with generic uses. While Kleenex can be used to describe any kind of
soft paper tissue, the word itself is the name of a specific brand of tissues.
Other trade names that have developed generic meanings include Dacron
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and  nylon (types of fabric), Tylenol  (a brand name for the painkiller aceta-
minophen), coke, Xerox, and band-aid. Trade names still associated with com-
panies will be capitalized, and companies wanting to prevent their products
from being used generically have sometimes resorted to lawsuits to protect
the distinctiveness of the names of their products.
Two processes involve either the shortening of single words or the
fusion of two words into one. Clippings are words that have been short-
ened: flu is a clipped form of influenza; phone is a shortened form of tele-
phone. Additional examples include doc(tor), sec(ond), taxi(meter) cab(riole),
(omni)bus, auto(mobile), gas(oline), and (inter)net. Blends result from parts of
two words being combined to create a single word. The word brunch is a
combination of breakfast
lunch. Other examples include:
stagflation (stagnation
 inflation)
chortle (chuckle
 snort)
smog (smoke
 fog)
infomercial (information
 commercial)
snizzle (snow
 drizzle)
blog (web
 log)
Docudrama (documentary
 drama)
Podcast (ipod
 broadcast)
Acronyms and abbreviations are formed using the first letters of two or
more words to form a single word. The difference between the two
processes is that while acronyms can be pronounced as a single word,
abbreviations have to be spelled out. Thus, AIDS is an acronym because it
can be pronounced as a single word, while CIA is an abbreviation because
the individual letters have to be pronounced. Acronyms and abbreviations
are very common in English. Examples abound:
Abbreviations
LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide)
DVD (digital video disc)
CPA (certified public accountant)
IED (improvised explosive device)
ID (identification)
lol (laughing out loud)
WMD (weapons of mass destruction)
MP (member of parliament, or military police)
Acronyms
yuppie (young urban professional)
MADD (mothers against drunk drivers)
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
RAM (random access memory)
NIMBY (not in my backyard)
radar (radio detection and ranging)
sonar (sound navigation and ranging)
laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation)
English words: Structure and meaning
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Typically, an abbreviation or acronym is spelled entirely with capital let-
ters. However, lol is entirely in lower case because it comes from a medium –
instant messaging – in which lower-case letters are generally preferred.
Words such as radar or sonar are lower case because these words are not
perceived to be acronyms: they are regarded as words themselves, not let-
ters derived from a series of words.
Back formations are words that are created through a reverse process of
affixation. For instance, the noun television is not a nominalization
derived from the verb televise. Instead, the reverse process occurred: televise
resulted from removing the -ion from television. The words below were all
derived through the removal of an affix:
enthuse (from enthusiastic)
attrit (attrition)
liaise (liaison)
burgle (burglar)
edit (editor)
euthanize (euthanasia)
advert (advertising)
laze (lazy)
pea (pease)
The last word in the list, pea, has an alternative analysis. This word is
derived from the Middle English word pease, which was a collective noun
(like  family or  team), not a plural form. However, the -se ending (pro-
nounced as /z/) was reanalyzed as a plural marker. This reanalysis led to
the formation of pea as a singular form of plural peas. This process is
known as folk etymology. It typically occurs with borrowings into English
that have forms that are reinterpreted in terms of English vocabulary or
grammar. The word chaise lounge is a good example. This word, borrowed
from French, literally means ‘long chair.’ But since attributive adjectives
in English come before not after the head noun, French longue is reana-
lyzed as English lounge (as in a place to relax). The expression humble pie,
according to the OED, is based upon a specific kind of pie, umble pie, made
from umbles (the intestines of an animal, such as a deer). Umbles became
associated with humble. Hence, the expression Eat your humble pie (i.e.
accept the humility you deserve for some act you’ve committed).
In addition to having meaning, words also have a pointing function com-
monly referred to as 
deixis
. As an illustration of the pointing function of
language, consider the two utterances below:
Ray Magliozzi: Don’t drive like my brother
Tom Magliozzi: Don’t drive like my brother
These statements occurred at the end of a call-in show on car repairs
broadcast on National Public Radio in the United States. They were uttered
by the two hosts of the show, who are brothers. Although the two utterances
Deixis
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contain exactly the same words, they are not redundant because while the
phrase my brother has the same meaning in both utterances, it has two dif-
ferent referents: two different individuals in the external world to which
the phrase refers, or points. The ability of words to refer is known as ref-
erential deixis. Two other types of deixis – spatial and temporal deixis –
specify how words can situate language in space and time.