Everything about Back-formation totally explained
In
etymology,
back-formation refers to the process of creating a new
lexeme (less precisely, a new "word") by removing actual or supposed
affixes. The resulting
neologism is called a
back-formation. Back-formations are shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations may be viewed as a sub-type of
clipping.
For example, the noun
resurrection was borrowed from Latin, and the verb
resurrect was then backformed hundreds of years later from it by removing the
-ion suffix. This segmentation of
resurrection into
resurrect +
ion was possible because English had many examples of Latinate words that had verb and verb+
-ion pairs — in these pairs the
-ion suffix is added to verb forms in order to create nouns (such as,
insert/insertion,
project/projection, etc.).
Back formation may be similar to the reanalyses of
folk etymologies when it rests on an erroneous understanding of the morphology of the longer word. For example, the singular noun
asset is a back-formation from the plural
assets. However,
assets is originally not a plural; it's a
loan-word from
Anglo-Norman asetz (modern
French assez). The
-s was reanalyzed as a plural suffix.
Back-formation in the English language
Many words came into English by this route:
Pease was once a
mass noun but was reinterpreted as a
plural, leading to the back-formation
pea. The noun
statistic was likewise a back-formation from the field of study
statistics. In Britain the verb
burgle came into use in the 19th century as a back-formation from
burglar (which can be compared to the
North America verb
burglarize formed by suffixation).
Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect. For example,
gruntled or
pervious (from
disgruntled and
impervious) would be considered mistakes today, and used only in humorous contexts. The comedian
George Gobel regularly used original back-formations in his humorous monologues.
Bill Bryson mused that the English language would be richer if we could call a tidy-haired person
shevelled - as an opposite to
dishevelled.
Frequently back-formations begin in colloquial use and only gradually become accepted. For example,
enthuse (from
enthusiasm) is gaining popularity, though it's still considered substandard by some today.
The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the
Siege of Mafeking briefly created the verb
to maffick, meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly. "Maffick" was a back-formation from
Mafeking, a
place-name that was treated humorously as a
gerund or
participle. There are many other
examples of back-formations in the English language.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Back-formation'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://back-formation.totallyexplained.com">Back-formation Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
