Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Some more stuff on new words

Just a couple of quick things that might help with ENA5 Contemporary Language Change (or ENA6 if this topic turns up).

First up is glamping (glamorous + camping), a phenomenon of recent years in which people who wouldn't normally go camping (poshos) slum it with the rest of us and do it in typical middle class style (pink camouflage tents, flower design welly boots, wine cooler etc.).
So which word formation process has created this word?

Next come J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez), BoJo (Boris Johnson) and SuBo (Susan Boyle). There's been a trend to shorten celebrity names to these clipped versions, but the most recent one has to be rather ironic (and cruel, given her recently reported collapse). Any ideas what processes might be involved here?

And how about these words, all derived from the recent economic collapse (and found here): bailout, dead mall and green shoots. Could the first be a conversion from the verb phrase "to bail (someone) out"? What about the processes involved in the other two?

Black British English vs MLE

The latest episode of Lexis is out and it features an interview with Ife Thompson about lots of issues connected to Black British English, i...