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Discussion Groups / British English / March 2006Greetings all - and a question on word division
Hello everyone I am new to this group, but I post regularly (i.e. 5-10 times per day) in a danish language group. There we have discovered an awfully funny way to waste time. We try to come up with words that can be divided in different ways making different meanings - often complete nonsense, but nevertheless seeming to make sense. An example (in danish) is 'Antikrist', meaning of course 'Antichrist'. It is divided Anti+krist. However, if you divide it 'antik+rist' it means 'antique grating'. I know of only five English words that work that way, namely 'coworker' (cow+orker), 'nosecone' (no+secone), 'scarcity' (scar+city), 'therapist' (the rapist), og 'unclean' (uncle An) Do you know the phenomenon at all? Can you come up with more (better) examples? best regards Anders Søe Plougsgaard At 21:30:36 on Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Anders Søe Plougsgaard <Anders_S_P@hotmail.com> wrote in <12_Sf.105$Sf1.59@news.get2net.dk>: >I know of only five English words that work that way, namely 'coworker' >(cow+orker), 'nosecone' (no+secone), 'scarcity' (scar+city), 'therapist' >(the rapist), og 'unclean' (uncle An) I wouldn't consider most of your examples to be valid, though - cow-orker is a Usenet joke, and there is no English work "orker"; neither is there a word "secone", nor an English name "An". There are some good ones available, though, and the best (like your other two) involve differences of pronunciation - for instance, manslaughter (man's laughter).  SignatureMolly Mockford They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin (My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.) >At 21:30:36 on Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Anders Søe Plougsgaard ><Anders_S_P@hotmail.com> wrote in <12_Sf.105$Sf1.59@news.get2net.dk>: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >other two) involve differences of pronunciation - for instance, >manslaughter (man's laughter). A similar one is "menswear". SignatureJohn Hall "Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history." George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) > Hello everyone > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Do you know the phenomenon at all? Can you come up with more (better) > examples? Ho that's a good one. Of course 'orker', 'secone' and, possibly, 'an' shouldn't really be acceptable as they aren't real words, but I like the idea. I'll try and think of some. > Ho that's a good one. Of course 'orker', 'secone' and, possibly, 'an' > shouldn't really be acceptable as they aren't real words, but I like the > idea. I'll try and think of some. No, quite often only one of the new syllables/parts make a real word such as 'uncle'. That also goes for many of the, say, 40 Danish words I know. I wasn't sure if you knew the game at all, because it works better with danish words. In English, you often separate compound words e.g. 'scarcity' is not written the same way as 'scar city'. In danish, you can actually see two meanings just by looking at the word. best regards Anders Søe Plougsgaard >> Ho that's a good one. Of course 'orker', 'secone' and, possibly, 'an' >> shouldn't really be acceptable as they aren't real words, but I like [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > 'scarcity' is not written the same way as 'scar city'. In danish, you > can actually see two meanings just by looking at the word. Well one suffix that did come to mind was -ring (and similar with a different initial letter such as ding, sing etc) so scar-ring, bid-ding, bus-sing and so on. The -ing makes it pretty easy as there are quite a few English words that end thus. Can't say I knew the game though until you mentioned it > I know of only five English words that work that way, namely 'coworker' > (cow+orker), 'nosecone' (no+secone), 'scarcity' (scar+city), 'therapist' > (the rapist), og 'unclean' (uncle An) > > Do you know the phenomenon at all? Can you come up with more (better) > examples? With the caveats that others have expressed about some of your examples, I offer 'atone' versus 'at one' and 'begone' vs 'beg one'. I expect that a thorough search of words ending in '-one' will yield other examples. One that makes me do a double take every time I read it is the verb 'predate' in the sense of 'antedate' rather than the common backformation from the noun 'predator'. Use of a hyphen in the 'antedate' variant takes the surprise away even though some might consider it to be incorrect. Giles > I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... That's more or less what it was originally, being a back formation from 'atonement', which was a specially coined biblical phrase meaning being at one with Christ. >> I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... > That's more or less what it was originally, being a back formation from > 'atonement', which was a specially coined biblical phrase meaning > being at one with Christ. I thought it was originally an Eskimo word, taken from "The Agenbyte of Inuit". Paul Burke >> I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... > > That's more or less what it was originally, being a back formation > from 'atonement', which was a specially coined biblical phrase meaning > being at one with Christ. Not really - the verb is Middle English. SignatureJohn Briggs > >> I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... > > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Not really - the verb is Middle English. I have obviously fallen prey to an apocryphal story. > > >> I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... > > > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > I have obviously fallen prey to an apocryphal story. Not completely. The Concise OED I have (1958 vintage) gives the etymology of "atone" as being "AT+ONE", meaning re-united. So it does seem to have been a back formation, but not specifically for biblical use. Cheers Tony SignatureTony Mountifield Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org >>>>> I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... >>>> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > seem to have been a back formation, but not specifically for biblical > use. No, that's a forward formation :-) That is the derivation, it is just not a back-formation from "atonement". SignatureJohn Briggs > I have obviously fallen prey to an apocryphal story. In that case, so has OED2: [f. the prec. advb. phr. in its combined form as repr. a simple idea, and 16th c. pronunciation. Short for the phrase ‘set or make at one’; cf. to back, to forward, to right, etc., and the compounds at-one-maker, at-one making, under prec. Assisted by the prior existence of the vb. to one = make one, put at one, unite, L. unWre, F. unir; whence onement was used already by Wyclif. From the frequent phrases ‘set at one’ or ‘at onement,’ the combined atonement began to take the place of onement early in 16th c., and atone to supplant one vb. about 1550. Atone was not admitted into the Bible in 1611, though atonement had been in since Tindale.] Earliest citation is from 1555, and looks more like Early Modern than Middle English to me: 1555 Fardle Facions i. vi. 92 Those battayles are attoned by the women+For when they be ones comen into the middle+the battaile sodenly ceaseth. Giles >> I have obviously fallen prey to an apocryphal story. > > In that case, so has OED2: No, his specific mistake was believing that "atone" was a back-formation from "atonement", rather than the derivation of the latter. SignatureJohn Briggs >> I offer 'atone' versus 'at one'... > > That's more or less what it was originally, being a back formation from > 'atonement', which was a specially coined biblical phrase meaning > being at one with Christ. So it is (and I am surprised, for no good reason other than my ignorance). Thanks for pointing that out. Giles >Hello everyone > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >Do you know the phenomenon at all? Can you come up with more (better) >examples? There are countless mundane examples in English - probably so many that the game doesn't really work as well as it may in Danish. E.g. words beginning with "car..." - car-apace, car-bide, car-mine, car-nation, car-rot, car-pet, car-at, car-a-van, car-away... I think we could go on a long time with ordinary examples - disc-over, disc-loser, disco-very. I suspect we've got a lot because there are so many short words in English and we can convert them into various parts of speech. There are even more if we allow informal words pa's-try, ma's-cot etc. SignaturePhil C. |
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