English Lexicon Is Changing
“Words Will not stay still” T. S. Elliot
The English lexicon is changing and always will change. Discuss with reference to contemporary Australian English.
Whether it is the creation of the new or the dying out of the old, the shortening of one or the blending of two, words and their semantics are forever transforming. The English language, as with all “living,” i.e., currently spoken, read, and/or written, languages are constantly changing. But that change only happens as people use the language, try out changes in meaning or spelling, and then spread that change. Language meaning or usage does not change “overnight,” it changes over time. Words change their meanings because a community of speakers who use those words cause them to change. …show more content…
Compounding is joining two separate words to make a whole new word. An example of this may include “gold-digger” which as two separate words means different things. However, the recent fusing together of these words now means that a gold-digger is a woman that is only together with a man because she wants his money. This neologism has been established to describe a certain type of woman who can be found within today’s society. Broadening is when the meaning of a word becomes broader or more inclusive than its earlier meaning. A modern example of this shift in meaning is the word “mint”. Mint used to be a type of herb but is now used as an evaluative/descriptive adjective used especially by teenagers, meaning “cool”, “good”, “attractive”. This transition shows how the younger generations have such a big impact on language change. The opposite of this process is Narrowing. The word naughty used to mean something much worse, being of naught (zero) value to anyone. Now it means you’re a bit troublesome, but not in a serious way. From this example it is obvious that the meanings of words shift over time due to new words with stronger implications such as wayward. Finally, affixation is a very common way …show more content…
It may be because we are looking for short cuts, especially if we need to say something over and over again. It is a common motivator. So fund-raisers say, “to gift-aid” rather than repeat, “donate using gift aid” all day long, and CIA agents looking for suspects to kidnap find “to rendition” handier than “to subject to extraordinary rendition”.
Another aspect of language change is the influence of fashion and even of individual idiosyncrasies. For example, in my family my Nan says “birsday” instead of “birthday” because of her inability to pronounce the unvoiced dental fricative,“th”. My brother and all my cousins find this pretty funny so we imitate her by also saying “birsday”. Imagine if our family were a part of a tightly knit tribal village and if others thought it was as funny as we do, the word “birthday” could slightly change evolve into “birsday” in one generation. This has probably happened many times throughout human
The English lexicon is changing and always will change. Discuss with reference to contemporary Australian English.
Whether it is the creation of the new or the dying out of the old, the shortening of one or the blending of two, words and their semantics are forever transforming. The English language, as with all “living,” i.e., currently spoken, read, and/or written, languages are constantly changing. But that change only happens as people use the language, try out changes in meaning or spelling, and then spread that change. Language meaning or usage does not change “overnight,” it changes over time. Words change their meanings because a community of speakers who use those words cause them to change. …show more content…
Compounding is joining two separate words to make a whole new word. An example of this may include “gold-digger” which as two separate words means different things. However, the recent fusing together of these words now means that a gold-digger is a woman that is only together with a man because she wants his money. This neologism has been established to describe a certain type of woman who can be found within today’s society. Broadening is when the meaning of a word becomes broader or more inclusive than its earlier meaning. A modern example of this shift in meaning is the word “mint”. Mint used to be a type of herb but is now used as an evaluative/descriptive adjective used especially by teenagers, meaning “cool”, “good”, “attractive”. This transition shows how the younger generations have such a big impact on language change. The opposite of this process is Narrowing. The word naughty used to mean something much worse, being of naught (zero) value to anyone. Now it means you’re a bit troublesome, but not in a serious way. From this example it is obvious that the meanings of words shift over time due to new words with stronger implications such as wayward. Finally, affixation is a very common way …show more content…
It may be because we are looking for short cuts, especially if we need to say something over and over again. It is a common motivator. So fund-raisers say, “to gift-aid” rather than repeat, “donate using gift aid” all day long, and CIA agents looking for suspects to kidnap find “to rendition” handier than “to subject to extraordinary rendition”.
Another aspect of language change is the influence of fashion and even of individual idiosyncrasies. For example, in my family my Nan says “birsday” instead of “birthday” because of her inability to pronounce the unvoiced dental fricative,“th”. My brother and all my cousins find this pretty funny so we imitate her by also saying “birsday”. Imagine if our family were a part of a tightly knit tribal village and if others thought it was as funny as we do, the word “birthday” could slightly change evolve into “birsday” in one generation. This has probably happened many times throughout human