Words and Wordsmithing
Parts of speech were taught when I went to school, along with how to diagram sentences to understand their use.
Here’s a quick refresher:
- Nouns: people, places, things, or ideas.
- Pronouns: a word used in place of a noun.
- Verbs: words that express action or being.
- Adjectives: words that describe nouns or pronouns.
- Adverbs: words that describe a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
- Prepositions: words placed before a noun or pronoun to form a phrase modifying another word in the sentence.
- Conjunctions: words that join words, phrases, or clauses.
- Interjections: words used to express emotion.
Until recently, I thought that covered all the word groups. I’ve discovered there are many more words to describe the way we use words. Here are a few:
Retronym: a modifier added to describe what was once its default meaning. Such as:
- cloth diaper since most diapers now are disposable,
- snail mail because, you know, email,
- whole milk because of almond milk and other flavors.
- regular coffee, plain M&Ms, also because of the added flavors now.
Get the idea? But be cautious: a retronym is not always an adjective/noun combination. It’s a word with a qualifier to refer to the original meaning of the word.
Thus, chocolate chip is not a retronym. Neither is cellular phone. Chocolate and cellular are descriptive.
Tmesis: a new word formed by placing one word in the middle of another.
Not a new concept: George Bernard Shaw used it in “Pygmalion”: Fan-bloody-tastic or abso-blooming-lutely.
Capitonym: a word that changes meaning, and sometimes pronunciation, when capitalized, i.e., mobile meaning moving or Mobile meaning the city in Alabama. Other examples include August, the month, or august, the adjective meaning respected and important.
Bahuvrihi: just saying this correctly should earn you extra credit points. If you want help, try here.
The word is Sanskrit and actually a bahuvrihi itself, which means “much rice” but refers to a rich man. Other examples would be barefoot, graybeard, redhead, or blue-collar/white-collar or old money.
Embolalia: words or sounds added into speech. It’s the words we use in stammered speech as we arrange our thoughts. Examples: well, but, I guess, um, you know.
Metonym or Metonymy: using the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, i.e., the bottle for strong drink, count heads (or noses) for count people, hoops for basketball, Capitol Hill for the US. Congress.
Mondegreen: is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are generally understood not to be intentional.
Around our family, the song “Elvira” is forever called It’ll Fire Up. Other examples: dawnzer lee light for the mishearing of the “dawn’s early light” lyric of the “Star- Spangled Banner,” or The ants are my friends for “The answer, my friend” in “Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan.
Portmanteau: two or more words are joined to coin a new word, which refers to a single concept, i.e., education + entertainment = edutainment, fan + magazine = fanzine, motor + hotel = motel, spoon + fork= spork
Slurvian: basically, this is a word that is slurred together.
Examples: d’ja, a slurred form of “did you”; wanna for want to; and the ubiquitous y’all for you all. That last example is considered standard English where I live. 😊
These new parts of speech are fascinating to me as a wordsmith and a word game player. I’m surprised at how often I hear them used in everyday conversation. Listen and you might be surprised too.
