A history of the English Language

220.
Coinages.
A considerable number of new words must be attributed to deliberate invention or 
coinage. There has probably never been a time when the creative impulse has not spent 
itself occasionally in inventing new words, but their chances of general adoption are 
nowadays often increased by a campaign of advertising as deliberate as the effort that 
created them. They are mostly the product of ingenuity and imitation, the two being 
blended in variable proportions. Thus the trademark 
Kodak,
which seems to be pure 
invention, was popularly used for years to refer to cameras of any brand, and 
Victrola
and 
Frigidaire
enjoyed something of the same currency as synonyms for 
phonograph
and 
refrigerator
.
 Kleenex
and 
Xerox
are trade terms that are often treated as common nouns, 
and 
Zipper,
a word coined by the B.F. Goodrich Company and registered in 1925 as the 
A history of the english language 286

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name for a boot fitted with a slide fastener, has become the universal name for the 
fastener itself. Words formed by combining the initial or first few letters of two or more 
words are known as acronyms. 
Radar
(
ra
dio 
d
etecting 
a
nd 
r
anging) is an example, as are 
scuba
(self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) and OPEC (Organization of 
Petroleum Exporting Countries).
1
In deliberate coinages there is often an analogy with 
some other word or words in the language. This is felt, consciously or unconsciously, to 
be desirable. It permits the meaning more easily to be guessed at, reveals a mild degree of 
ingenuity on the part of the inventor, and focuses the attention on the distinctive syllable 
or syllables. 
Mazola
obviously refers to 
maize
and 
oil,
and 
Sine-off 
in addition to its 
reference to sinuses evokes associations with “signing off” in broadcasting or going to 
sleep. 
Dictaphone
combines elements found in the words 
dictate
and 
telephone,
just as 
travelogue
is a cross between 
travel
and 
dialogue
.
 Bureaucrat
and
 plutocrat
are 
obviously formed on the model of 
aristocrat, autocrat,
etc., as 
electrocute
is modeled 
after 
execute
. Sometimes a Latin formative element is used and the new word has a rather 
specious classical air, as in 
novocaine
from Latin 
novus
(new) grafted upon the English 
word 
cocaine
.
1 
More than 520,000 other examples have been collected in
 Acronyms, Initialisms, and 
Abbreviations Dictionary,
ed. Jennifer Mossman (16th ed., Detroit, 1992). 
The nineteenth century and after 287

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Words such as 
electrocute
or 
travelogue
are often called 
portmanteau
words, or better, 
blends
.
2
In them two words are, as it were, telescoped into one. This was a favorite 
pastime of the author of
 Alice in Wonderland,
and to him we owe the words 
chortle,
a 
blending of 
snort
and 
chuckle,
and 
snark
(snake+shark). Similarly, the tunnel beneath the 
English Channel is called the 
Chunnel
. Often such coinages are formed with a playful or 
humorous intent. The 
OED
records 
brunch
in the year 1900. Although it was originally 
used facetiously in speaking of those who get up too late for breakfast and therefore 
combine breakfast and lunch, it is now as likely to be used for the name of a social 
occasion. 
Paradoxology, alcoholiday, revusical, yellocution, guestimate, condomania, 
ecopolypse,
and the like, often reveal flashes of wit. They carry a momentary appeal, like 
the coinages of 
Time
magazine 
(cinemactress, cinemaddict, cinemagnate),
but only a few 
of them—
socialite
for one—are likely to find a permanent place in the language. Like 
epigrams they lose their luster when passed about at second hand.