5.8 Backformation

Backformation is coining a new word from an older word which is mistakenly taken as its derivative. It is “a process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word in a language” (O’Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, & Rees-Miller, 1993, p.127). For example, resurrect was formed from resurrection. Other backformations include accrete from accretion, adolesce from adolescence, attrit from attrition, babysit from babysitter, beg from beggar, bulldoze from bulldozer, choate from inchoate, commentate from commentator, enthuse from enthusiasm, evaluate from evaluation, haze from hazy, and others. Words ending in –or, ar, or -er are susceptible to backformation. Because such words as teacher, singer, and others are the result of suffixation, other words such as editor, burglar, peddler, respirator, and swindler are believed to be built the same way, resulting in creation of the verbs edit, burgle, peddle, respirate, and swindle. Many verbs are formed from abstract nouns ending in –ion: absciss from abscission, accrete from accretion, and ablute from ablution. The oldest backformation in American English is locate (from location), which came into being in the seventeenth century. After the Civil war, out of the word commutation a new word, commute, was coined to indicate a regular railroad travel to and from the city. Several other words such as housekeep, burgle, enthuse, donate, injunct, and jell were created. The British English also used backformation by changing an –ation noun to –ate verb: create from creation, deviate from deviation, delineate from delineation, placate from placation, and ruminate from rumination. Backformation continues to produce new words. Some are formed because of a real need, but some of them are just playful formations. These words are fully adopted into the language, and few persons who use them know their origin.

5.9 Clipping

In contradiction to the eighteenth century British English purism, the American English of the nineteenth century reveled in the process of clipping. Clipping is a process of word-formation which shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables, thus retaining only a part of the stem, e.g., lab (laboratory), bra (brassière), bus (omnibus), car (motorcar), and mob (mobile vulgus). Clipping is synonymous to shortening, so these terms will be used interchangeably.

Various classifications of shortened words have been offered. The generally accepted one is that based on the position of the clipped part. According to whether it is the final, the initial, or the middle part of the word that is cut off we distinguish initial clipping (aphaeresis), and medial clipping (syncope), final clipping (apocope).

• Aphaeresis: the loss of one or more letters at the beginning of a word: story (history), cello (violoncello), phone (telephone).

• Syncope: the loss of one or more letters in the interior of a word: specs (spectacles), aphesis (aphaeresis).

• Apocope: the loss of one or more letters at the end of a word: ad (advertisement), ed (editor), fab (fabulous), prof (professor), and gym (gymnastics or gymnasium).

In some cases, speakers do not even realize that a particular word is the product of clipping; for example, the word zoo was formed from zoological garden.