Creating A New Word - Your Turn To Create A Word!

Creating a New Word - y our turn to create a word!

Read the description for this activity on p. 120. Share your word by Wed; respond to TWO classmates by 5 pm Friday for full credit. Read the item about "Sniglets".

1. Can you think of words that should be recognized as words? Maybe those you and your friends use that communicate exactly what you mean, but you wouldn't find in the dictionary.
2. What do you think should be the criteria for inclusion in a dictionary? Think about "Google". It is now a recognized dictionary word. Why?

Paper For Above instruction

Creating new words and understanding the criteria for their inclusion in dictionaries are vital aspects of language evolution. The activity presented encourages students to actively participate in the process of lexical innovation by devising original terms that reflect current vernacular or emerging concepts. This exercise not only fosters creativity but also prompts critical thinking about the nature of language, its adaptability, and the standards that dictionaries use to decide what words are officially recognized. Furthermore, comparing new words to established terms like "Google" reveals how technological and cultural phenomena rapidly influence language, warranting their formal acknowledgment in lexicons. Engaging with these ideas enhances language awareness and highlights the dynamic, living nature of words, which continuously evolve to meet societal needs.

In the initial task, students are asked to invent a new word that fills a lexical gap or captures a concept not yet succinctly expressed in English. This requires understanding the morphological and phonetic structures that make neologisms memorable and functional. For example, students might create a word like "snizzle" to describe a light, playful drizzle of rain. The activity emphasizes the importance of clarity, ease of pronunciation, and relevance of the new term, ensuring it could plausibly become integrated into everyday language.

Responding to classmates' words encourages peer learning and critical evaluation. Comments should consider whether the proposed words are intuitive, memorable, and necessary. Discussing "Sniglets" — humorous or inventive words that have entered popular usage — further illustrates how playful language can become mainstream. This aspect highlights that language is not solely governed by formal rules but also by social acceptance and shared understanding.

The second task involves combining sentences into appositives to improve conciseness and cohesion. An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that renames or provides additional information about a preceding noun. For example, transforming "My brother is a teacher. He works at the local school." into "My brother, a teacher, works at the local school," demonstrates how appositives streamline information and enrich sentence structure. This skill is crucial for effective academic and professional writing, facilitating clarity and sophistication in expression.

Overall, these exercises promote linguistic awareness, grammatical proficiency, and creative thinking. Developing new words expands expressive capacity, while mastering appositives enhances syntactic variety. Both activities underscore the importance of language as a tool for personal expression, social interaction, and scholarly communication. By engaging in these tasks, students deepen their appreciation of language's flexibility and its role in shaping cultural identity.

References

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• Merriam-Webster. (2020). Dictionary criteria and lexicography. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com
• Oxford English Dictionary. (2021). Guide to Lexicographical Content and Criteria. Oxford University Press.
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• Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.). (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
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