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                            How New Words Are Created

      Below we can find the description of five different processes that have led to the creation of new words in the English language.

      (I) ________

      Many of the new words added to the ever-growing lexicon of the English language are just created out of the blue, and often have líttle or no etymological pedigree. A good example is the word dog, etymologically unrelated to any other known word, which, in the late Middle Ages, suddenly and mysteriously displaced the Old English word hound (or hund) which had served for centuries.

      (II) ___________

      Some words arise simply as shortened forms of longer words (exam, gym, lab, bus, vet, phone and burger are some obvious and wellused examples). Perhaps less obvious is the derivation of words like goodbye (a shortening of God-be-with-you) and hello (a shortened form of the Old English for "whole be thou").

      (III) ______________

      Like many languages, English allows the formation of words by joining together shorter words (e.g. airport, seashore, fireplace, etc.). The concatenation of words in English may even allow for different meanings depending on the order of combination (e.g. houseboat/boathouse, casebook/bookcase, etc) .

      (IV) _______

      The drift of word meanings over time often arises, often but not always due to catachresis. By some estimates, over half of all words adopted into English from Latin have changed their meaning in some way over time, often drastically. For example, smart originally meant sharp, cutting or painful; A more modern example is the changing meaning of gay from merry to homosexual (and, in some circles in more recent years, to stupid or bad).

      (V) ______

      New words may arise due to mishearings or misrenderings. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", there are at least 350 words in English dictionaries (most of them thankfully quite obscure) that owe their existence purely to typos or other misrenderings (e.g. shamefaced from the original shamefast, penthouse from pentice, sweetheart from sweetard, buttonhole from button-hold, etc).

                         (Adapted from http://wviw.thehistoryofenglish.com/issues_new.html)