Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Crotchdogs, mousemobs and piersonalities

If you got a chance to have a look at Monday's Guardian while drying off and getting warm in between bouts of snowball fighting, sledging and snowman building (or snow whatever building - Nathan knows what I mean), then you will have come across Charlie Brooker's column, in which he lists a number of entries from his New Media Dictionary. These are all spoof word formations, but they're worth looking at because (a) they demonstrate a number of the word formation processes that those of you on the A2 course need to know by heart for Language Change, and (b) some of them are very funny. Take, for example:

chudge (chudj) n. An underqualified judge on an underwhelming TV talent contest.

craptitude test
(krap-ti-chewed tessed) n. A televised talent contest with a panel of chudges (qv).

zerotoleriddance
(zero-toller-riddantz) n. The moment the public mood finally and irrevocably turns against a hitherto-just-about-tolerable minor celebrity; eg, "We put Danielle Lloyd on the cover and sales nosedived; looks like she's hit zerotoleriddance."

We've looked at this sort of thing many times before, so if you've got five minutes and you want to have a go at coming up with your own spoof neologisms I'd love to see them. Post them as a comment below (together with your analysis of the word formation process) and I might even find it in my heart to give a prize for the best one (and the most accurate analysis). Here's my effort:

bincentive (bin-sent-iv) n. A motivational 'prize' offered by one such as an English Language teacher, which, while purporting to be of high value (e.g. a Mars Bar, a Cafe Nero voucher) is, in fact, worth nothing (e.g. said teacher's 'applause' and 'respect'). Blend of 'bin' and 'incentive'.

Your turn...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Snoresome (snor-sum) adj. Used to describe something that you're feigning interest in so as to maintain social relationships - eg. You play guitar now? That's snoresome! Blend of 'snore' and 'awesome'