This document discusses various types of lexical change in language, including borrowing, acronyms, blends, derivational compounding, reduplicative rhyming, abbreviations, analogy, verb plus particle constructions, productivity, and taboo/euphemism. Some examples provided include calques, acronyms like scuba and laser, blends like mockney and cosmeceutical, compounding suffixes like -athon and -gate, reduplicative rhyming words like ding-dong, and euphemisms used instead of taboo words like "honey-eater" instead of "bear".

1. LEXICAL
CHANGE
Alvin B. Manalang
MAED-Language Education
Dr. Eriberta T. Maglaqui
Professor

2. Borrowing

3. Acronyms

4. Blends

5. Derivational
Compounding

6. Reduplicative
Rhyming

7. Abbreviations

8. Analogy

9. Verb (or Noun)
plus particle

10. Productivity

11. Taboo,
Euphemism

12. Loss

13. Borrowing
Loan-translation (calques) usually from
Classical or prestigious languages: Latin,
Greek, Sanskrit, Chinese, French; now
English is donor language to many others

14. Calque
•A word or phrase in one
language whose
semantic components
(words or parts of words)
are translations from
another language

15. Calque
• The English phrase "blue blood"
is a calque of the Spanish
phrase sangre
azul (sangre means "blood"
and azul means "blue"), which at
one time apparently referred to
the visible veins of fair-skinned
people.

16. Calque
The Spanish rascacielo is
a calque of the English
"skyscraper" (rasca means
"it scrapes"
and cielomeans "sky

17. Calque
• The English phrase "piña
colada," which is a simple
borrowing of the Spanish
phrase rather than a
translation of the words
(which mean "strained
pineapple").

18. • Some languages borrow
freely; others do not
Sometimes languages borrow
the same word twice
(`doublets;), or borrow a word
they already have,

19. English `shirt, skirt';
`gauche, gawky', `castle,
chateau'; `nurse,
nourish'; `lance, launch';
`rancid, raunchy';
`pocket, pouch, poach'
(`triplets').

20. • English words for meat, `beef,
mutton, veal' are used only for
`animal meat as food', whereas in
French `boeuf, mouton, veau' are
the names of the live animal as
well as its meat.

21. Acronyms

22. Acronyms
•Acronyms are made up
of initials of words,
combined into a
pronounceable 'word'.

23. • Examples:
• DUMBO ('Down Under the
Manhattan-Brooklyn
Overpass')

24. asap, sop, scuba, radar, sonar,
laser, NATO, DOS, RAM,
ROM, WYSIWYG, CAUTION,
FNMA ('Fanny Mae'), GNMA
('Ginny Mae,').

25. • Mflops, gigaflop
• [flop = floating operations
per second ], cat-scan, pet-scan,
PANS (pretty amazing new stuff)
Sometimes acronyms are combined
with other material, as in the case of
giga-flop, where 'giga' is an
abbreviation of gigantic.

26. • OMG (Oh my God), BTW (by
the way), AFAIK (as far as I k
now),
• LOL (laughing out loud), ROT
FL
• (rolling on the
floor laughing),

27. • IMHO
• (in my humble opinion)
• FWIW (for what it’sworth), T
TYL (talk to you later), and bff
(best friends forever).
OMG!

28. Blends

29. Blends
Shamnesty: blend of sham and
amnesty, meaning a fake
amnesty, or something that
pretends to be something other
than an amnesty, as in the
recent debate over immigration
'reform.'

30. Blends
Lopomo: blend of low-
power mode, i.e., a setting for
electrical and other consumer
products that idle at a level that
consumes less power than
when being used in full-power
mode.

31. Blends
Pedlock: blend
of pedestrian and
gridlock: Pedestrian
gridlock.

32. Blends
Mockney: blend
of Mock and cockney. Mock
Cockney, a.k.a.
"Estuary English.“
–starchitect Blend of star and
architect An architect who is a
'star‘.

33. Blends
–cosmeceutical Blend
of cosmetic(s) and
pharmaceutical A pharmaceutical
product that also has cosmetic
uses, e.g. Botox.
–Glamazon Blend of glamour and
Amazon The glamour of amazons,
Greeks heroes, etc. (as depicted in
recent movies such as "Troy" etc.)

34. Blends
–toyetic Blend of toy + -etic 'suffix
used to make adjectives out of
nouns.' A character or thing found
in a movie that can easily be made
into a mass-marketed toy, used to
earn more profits for the
filmmaker.

35. Blends
– Mobisode A blend of mobile and episode. A
brief episode of a video programme designed
to be viewed on a mobile phone.
– Premercial: A blend of Pre- and
commercial-- a commercial that pops up on
your computer screen before the website
you've intended to load comes on.
– Hatriot A blend of hate and patriot, i.e. a
person who fancies himself a patriot, but is full
of hate.

36. Blends
Obamapaloosa A blend of Barack Obama the
African-American Senator from Illinois' and
lallapaloosa 'Something outstandingly good
of its kind'. here. 'Obamapaloosa' refers to the
extreme hype and publicity given to Mr.
Obama at the Democratic Convention in
Boston (July 2004).
infoganda: A blend of information +
propaganda.

37. Blends
–humint Blend of human
+ intelligence; a term used by CIA
agents, etc. Contrasts with rumint,
a blend of rumor + intelligence,
which isn't worth much.
–Fortran (For[mula] Tran[slating]
[System]): a computer
programming language.

38. Blends
–Ebonics (Ebon[y] + [Phon]ix);
–Wyotana (Wyo[ming] + [Mon]tana);
–racino (rac[etrack]+[cas]ino) a
racetrack with gambling machines
(slots etc.);
–movieoke (movie + karaoke)

39. Blends
gitmoize 'Gitmo' is an abbreviated
form of Guantanamo, the base we
control in Cuba, where prisoners from
the war on terror were taken. Gitmo +
ize is a verb meaning 'take the
techniques for extraction of
'intelligence' from prisoners at Gitmo,
and apply them in Iraq,' as in "We
decided to gitmo-ize Abu Graib."

40. Blends
cyborg: cybernetic + organism.
Note how 'cyborg' is then
shortened to Borg in some usages
(e.g. StarTrek).
–gentlemandatory ('mandatory for a
gentleman'),
–'Froogle' ( Frugal + Google);
–'threepeat' (three + repeat)
--something repeated three times;

41. Blends
'prebuttal' (preemptive +
rebuttal --a rebuttal made even
before the claims that are being
rebutted have been made);
–Quackupuncture (sham
acupuncture),

42. Blends
–TriBeCa (triangle below Canal
Street),
–NoLita (neighborhood in New
York City that is North
of Little Italy)

43. Blends
–metrosexual (met(ro) +
(hete)rosexual, and
even retrosexual)
–Gestapo
(Ge[heime] Sta[ats] Po[lizei],
the secret police in Nazi
Germany),

44. Blends
Stasi (The East German secret
police Sta[ats]Si[cherheitsdienst])
–glitterati (from glitter + literatti,
digerati, causeratti, and now
blatherati, chateratti and ditherati.
–greige (Gr[ay]+[b]eige)

45. Blends
-smog (smoke+ fog),
–modem (modulator/demodulator),
–mockumentary (mo[ck]+
[do]cumentary) (and from there we go
on to schlockumentary, rockumentary,
punkumentary),
–ficto-facto (a sort of half factual, half
fictitious account of something)

46. Blends
–rebar (re[inforced steel] bar),
–brunch,
–Cylenol (Cyanide + Tylenol),
–knowbot (`software robot'),

47. Blends
–moga (Japanese, from mo[dern] girl),
–sekuhara (Japanese, from sexual
harrassment)
–environazi, feminazi,
–infomercial, premercial (commercial
that precedes something),
infotainment, docutainment,
edutainment,

48. Blends
–buscapade,
–sitcom (and Britcom [British
sitcoms] and now zitcom [teen-
themed sitcoms]),
–nibling (niece/nephew sibling);
–Tamil kiimii from abbreviation
of kii[loo]mii[TTar] `kilometer'.

49. Blends
–Brand names: butterine from
butter + (marger)ine;
–Military/burocratic: 'hazmats'
(as in NO
HAZMATS permitted in
tunnel) (haz[ardous]
mat[erials]);

50. Blends
• . Here's one that blends an
acronym (W.A.P.
or wireless application
protocol ) with the
word apathy --
> wapathy `disappointment
with W.A.P.’

51. Blends
• Here's a blend of three
• words: turducken which is a blend
of tur(key)+duck+chicken,
literally and lexically--turducken is
made by stuffing a (boned)
chicken into a duck and then
stuffing the duck into a turkey.

52. Reduplicative
Rhyming

53. Reduplicative Rhyming
• This process has been around for
a long time in English, but is very
productive, adding new ones all
the time.

54. Reduplicative Rhyming
• ticky-tacky, slo-mo (actually a
blend of slo[w]+mo[tion]),
• fro-yo (blend of fro[zen]
yo[gurt]), ding-dong, clickety-
clack, wing-ding,

55. Derivational
Compounding

56. Derivational Compounding
–-athon: (marathon, danceathon,
telethon, phonathon, runathon,
sleepathon)
–-orama: (panorama, diorama,
sellorama, shmoozerama)
–-burger (Cheeseburger,
Fishburger (fishwich),
Suicideburger)

57. Derivational Compounding
–-gate (Water-gate (scandal),
Korea-gate, Irangate, Contragate,
etc.)
–(McDonalds leads to) McNuggets,
McKids, Egg McMuffin, McFood,
MacWrite, McJobs, McMansions ...

58. Derivational Compounding
-ster: An old suffix meaning 'someone
who does something' (or 'something that
serves as something') has been around
in the language for some time, with
words like 'spinster' (one who spins),
'webster' (one who weaves), 'baxter'
[bak-ster] (one who bakes), etc. Some
of these have become proper names.

59. Derivational Compounding
• In the more modern usages, there is
sometimes an implication of negativity or
pejorativity: 'roadster,
gangster, shyster, mobster' etc. and now
some very modern usages (some
pejorative, some not): 'dumpster, pollster,
tipster, scamster, spamster, and shamster
, blogster, and last but not
least: napster. (I don't think 'lobster'
belongs here...)

60. Abbreviations

61. Abbreviations
• a shortened or contracted form
of a word or phrase, used to
represent the whole, as Dr. for
Doctor, U.S. for United States,
lb. for pound.blem, to fed ex,
tv (telly), perm, Nazi, to nuke,
to lase (< laser).

62. Analogy

63. Analogy
•Computer Hard ware,
then `software,
shareware,
vaporware, liveware,
dreamware'.

64. Analogy
•Compare: `men's wear,
ladies' wear, underwear,
sleepwear, eyewear,
legwear, sportswear,
skiwear;

65. Analogy
•alimony (palimony,
galimony); candelabra,
from which we get
`scandalabra' (char. of
the Clinton admin.?)

66. Verb (or Noun)
plus particle

67. Verb (or Noun) plus particle
• Germanic languages have many verb+
participle constructions, e.g. `go away, run
out/in/up/down' etc. Revived during 60's
and 70's: `turn on, tune out, drop out; flake
out; rip off, wig out;' more recently: `max
out, wimp out'; 'job out; to get a buy-in';
particle plus noun: upscale, downscale,
downsize, download/upload, uplink ...

68. Productivity

69. Productivity
• : Some morpheme, e.g. -
ize acquires wide use as a
verbalizing device in English:
productivize, grammaticalize,
incentivize, potentialize, verbalize,
...'; -ify: clarify, certify, gentrify,
pacify, yuppify, etc. Another
possibility: the borrowed

70. Productivity
• suffix -nik which comes from Russian
via Yiddish, gives us noodnik,
beatnik, neatnik, nogoodnik,
stickupnik, sputnik, etc. Thus -
ster (see above) has had some
degree of productivity in the past, but
has now been re-energized, probably
because of 'napster.'

71. Taboo,
Euphemism

72. Taboo, Euphemism
Some items may acquire taboo, because of
vulgarity (4-letter words in English.), `magic'
(shamanism, religion, etc.) The Indo-
European word for `bear' is fraught with many
problems because in Slavic, e.g. the bear
was taboo; was referred to as `honey-eater'
[med'ved'] to avoid the taboo. In many
languages `dying, to die' can not be
discussed openly, must use euphemisms:
`pass on/away, go to h. reward, lose (s.o.)'
etc.

73. Loss

74. Loss
• Many words go out of fashion, or
the technology associated with
them is replaced with new
technology. Words become
archaic or obsolete. What is a
`snood', a 'swale', a `thane', a
`quidity'?

75. Word from Names

76. Eponym
is a word derived
from the proper
name of a person or
place.

77. Fourth Earl of Sandwich
• sandwich, for instance--
famously consumed (if not
invented) by John Montagu,
Fourth Earl of Sandwich, who
put his food between two
slices of bread so that he
could eat while he gambled.

78. Louis Pasteur
• pasteurization, from the
name of the fearless French
chemist who invented the
process.

79. St. Valentine
•valentine, from the
saintly name of not
one but two early
Christian martyrs.

80. Don Quixote
•quixotic, from the
windmill-tilting hero of
Cervantes' great
romance, Don
Quixote.

81. Gargantuan
•Named for Gargantua,
the creature with a
huge appetite created
by Ravelais

82. Jumbo
•After an elephant
brought to the United
States by P.T Barnum.(“
Jumbo olives” need not
as an elephant
however.)

83. Signor Paparazzo
• Paparazzi “ a freelance
photographer who
doggedly pursues
celebrities,” a little-known
word until the death of
Princess Diana in 1997

84. Amp and Ampere
• Ampere (from André Marie Ampère,
1775-1836)
•
The term for a unit of electric current was
named after the French mathematician
who's credited with the discovery of
electromagnetism.

85. Diesel
• (from Rudolf Diesel, 1858-1913)
•
After surviving the explosion of his first
internal combustion engine, German
engineer Rudolf Diesel went on to achieve
wealth and fame--until drowning when he
went overboard while crossing the English
Channel by steamer.

86. Draconian
• (from Draco, 7th century BC)
The first chief magistrate of ancient
Athens, Draco composed a memorably
harsh legal code, one that liberally applied
the death penalty.

87. Dunce
• (from John Duns Scotus, 1265-1308)
Though Scotus himself was a highly
regarded theologian and philosopher, his
quarreling followers brought the master's
name into disrepute. By the 16th
century, dunce had become a derogatory
term for a slow-witted or ignorant person.

88. Filbert
• (from Saint Philibert, 608-684)
This thick-shelled nut is named
after the Frankish saint whose
feast day is in mid-August, at
the height of the nutting
season.

89. Guppy
• (from R.J. Lechmere Guppy,
1836-1916)
This small freshwater fish bears
the name of the British-born
naturalist who discovered it while
he was living in Trinidad.

90. Leotard
• (from Jules Leotard, 1830-1870)
French aerialist Jules Leotard not
only had a tight-fitting garment named
after him but also had a popular song
written about him--"The Daring Young
Man on the Flying Trapeze."

91. Mausoleum
• (from Mausolus, ruler of the ancient Asian
country of Caria, 377–353 BC)
Over 100 feet high, the tomb of King
Mausolus survived into the 12th century
and was considered one of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World. Since then,
the wordmausoleum has come to be used
for any large, above-ground tomb.

92. Salisbury steak
•
(from James H. Salisbury, 1823–
1905)
•
American physician James
Salisbury invented this cafeteria
staple as part of his highly
questionable all-meat diet.

93. Sequoia
• (from Sequoyah, also known as George
Guess, 1770-1843)
A Cherokee silversmith, Sequoyah
devised a practical writing system for the
Cherokee language, thus enabling his
tribe to read and write. Shortly after his
death, the huge California cypress tree
was named in his honor.

94. Word Coinage in English
• Preferred Patterns for Academic English:
• Affixing:
– derivations: trans/mit, re/mit, e/mit, sub/mit
– (compare with inflections: wait/s, wait/ed, wait/ing)
• Compounding: politeness factor, sodium chloride
• Acronyms: FYI, NATO, BYO, rsvp, scuba
• Preferred Patterns for Interpersonal English:
• Semantic shift or metaphorical extension: bottomless, rip off
• Conversion: sing (noun)
• Compounding: girlfriend, fastfood
• Clippings (abbreviations): fax (facsimile)
• Historically Important but Less Common Today
• Borrowing: rendezvous, spaghetti
• Possible but Less Seldom Used
• Invention: blurglegee, Xenon
• Onomatopoeia: blahs
• Loan translation (calque): see through (transparent) living space (lebensraum)
• Blends: smog, brunch, motel
• Reduplication: no-no (noun)
• Back formations (false etymology): edit, burger, pea
• Eponyms (words based on names): sandwich, kleenex

95. • Words may be created outright to fit some
purpose.
• Kodak, nylon, Orlon, and Dacron.
• Xerox, Band-Aid, Kleenex, Jell-O, Brillo,
and Vaseline
• Asteroid, neutron,genome, krypton,
brontosaurus and vaccine

96. • Dot-com .com dot.com, and dot com
Bling, Bollywood, sudoku, Google
• Phobias
• Word + Phobia
• Ex: Akros “topmost” and phobia “fear” we
get acrophobia, “dread of heights.”

97. • Triskaidekaphobia: a profound fear of
number 13
• Logizomemechaphobia: “fear of reckoning
machine” from Greek logizomai “ to
reckon or compute” + mekhane “device” +
phobia
• Ellipsosyllabophobia: “fear of words with a
missing syllable” from Greek elleipsis “ a
falling short” + syllabẽ “ syllable” + phobia

98. • Pornophobia : “ fear of prostitute” from
Greek porne “ harlot” + phobia

99. The End
•Thank You Very
much.