10.1B Historic / archaic words
The Random House Dictionary defines an obsolete word as one no longer in use, esp. out of use for at least a century. An archaism is referred to as current in an earlier time but rare in present use,
e. g. thou, thy,
damsel (for a girl),
moon (for a month),
morn (for morning).
10.1C New words / neologisms
A neologism is a newly coined word or phrase or a new meaning for an existing word or a word borrowed from another language.
e.g. de-orbit, laseronic, aeroneurosis, backpacker
10.2 Stylistic stratification represents the strata of words that are applied in different functional styles. The three basic strata are:
neutral words
bookish words
colloquial words
Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary
10.2A Stylistically neutral words
Stylistically neutral words include the most vital part of the vocabulary. Etymologically they are mostly native, or borrowed long ago and assimilated,
e.g. Latin borrowings and words of Greek origin borrowed through Latin, copper, wall, church, street;
early French borrowings: pleasure, army, judge, mutton;
the bulk of early Scandinavian borrowings, e.g. husband, sky.
Stylistically neutral words are often root words. Since they are devoid of emotional colouring their frequency value is very high and therefore they are often polysemantic.
10.2B Bookish words
Bookish words are mostly borrowed ones, chiefly of Romanic origin, going back to Latin or Greek root. They are polymorphemic and polysyllabic, their range of application is rather narrow, they are mostly monosemantic.
e.g. father – paternal, home – domestic, lip – labial, mind – mental, sun – solar.
Such words are also called learned vocabulary. This vocabulary comprises such words as hereby, herein, moreover, therein, furthermore, however, in consequence.
10.2C Special Terminology
A term is a word or word-group used to name the notion characteristic of some special field of knowledge, industry or culture. A term is a very peculiar type of word. Terms are mostly monosemantic. Polysemy (if it arises) is a drawback, so all try to avoid. Terms are not emotionally coloured. Many of the terms that in the first period of their existence are known to a few specialists, later become used by a wide circle of people,
e.g. stratosphere (1908), gene (1908), vitamin (1912), isotope (1932), radar (1942),
transistor (1952).
10.2D Colloquial Words
Colloquial words are marked by their special emotional colouring. They are closer to neutral words both etymologically and structurally than to bookish words. However affixation (forming diminutives) is rather frequent,
–ie auntie, birdie
–y baby, granny, kitty
–ette kitchenette
–ish piggish
Hyperbolic expressions are also common here:
e.g. awfully nice, terribly sweet, unutterably exotic, etc.
Polysemy in general is a prominent feature here:
e.g. way, thing, take, set, give
(1) Dialectal words
Standard English is the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and TV and spoken by educated people. It is form of English which is correct and literary, uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken and understood.
Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words belonging to various local dialects. There are local dialects which are varieties of the English language, peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form and variants which are regional varieties possessing a literary form.
In Great Britain there are two variants - Scottish English and Irish English, and five main dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several dialects. One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of London. The OED‘s first recorded use of Cockney is dated 1776. But it has been suggested that a Cockney style of speech is much older.
Cockney exists on two levels:
1) as spoken by the educated lower middle classes. It’s a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax.
2) as spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard English also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax. B. Show’s play “Pygmalion” clearly renders this level of Cockney. Professor Henry Higgins, the main character of the play, speaking about Aliza Doolitle, the flower girl, says: You see this creature with her curbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, in three months I could pass this girl off as a duchess. It requires better English.
The difference between Standard English and Cockney in pronunciation.
1. Dropping the sound /h/ at the beginning of words: ave (have); and adding it to words beginning with vowels:
e.g. atmosphere – hatmosphere
influence – hinfluence
2. Dropping /v/ in of
3. Substituting /v/ by /w/ and vice versa,
e.g. wery and vith
4. The simplification of the diphthong au to a:
e.g.houses /'ha:ziz/
Cockney is lively and witty and its vocabulary is imaginative and colourful. It has set expressions of its own. Its specific feature is so-called rhyming slang.
e.g. head – loaf of bread
wife – trouble and strife
Rhyming Slang phrases are derived from taking an expression which rhymes with a word and then using that expression instead of the word, e.g. the word "look" rhymes with "butcher's hook".
In many cases the rhyming word is omitted – so you won't find too many Londoners having a "bucher's hook", but you might find a few having a "butcher's". "Use your loaf" is an everyday phrase for the British, but not too many people realise it is Cockney Rhyming Slang ("loaf of bread: head").