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New words for old
Our answers
Neologising - Note first of all that the verb 'neologise' is not,
in fact, a neologism. Most dictionaries have 'neologise' as a recognised
verbal derivation from 'neologism'. The verbal form is pretty rare, though,
and the present participle form used here is even more rare. This unusual
shift in word class for the title word of the poem thus signals the series
of unusual words to come. The poem is about how you can use neologism
to create new meaning and significance in writing. Using a verb for the
title of a poem is also fairly unusual. Most poems have nouns or noun
phrases for their titles.
Snugcompactunit - Here we have three words 'snugcompactunit', which
are part of a noun phrase 'one snug compact unit', run together to make
one word. This can be achieved easily in writing because we normally signal
word boundaries by spaces. Note that it would be very difficult to achieve
the same sort of effect in speech, where words are not normally separated
by gaps. Perhaps you could do it by saying the three words much faster
than the words around it. You may feel the need to do this, for example,
if you read the poem out loud to someone else (in other words, the graphological
oddity and its consequences lead us to predictions about the spoken performance
of the poem).
In this case, the effect that the author is striving for is obvious enough.
The new word refers to a very compressed idea, and the creation of one
word out of three 'mimics' this idea. It is thus an example of what we
might call 'graphological symbolism', getting its effect through contrast
with the normal phrase 'one snug compact unit'.
Meaningocity - This word is a noun and appears to mean something
like 'ferocious reciprocal meaning'. 'A high degree of meaning' is normal
enough, and it looks as if the word is meant to be a derived form of 'meaning'.
But 'meaning' is already a noun, and so does not need an '-ity' suffix
to indicate 'nouniness' ('-ity' is often used to turn adjectives ending
in -ous' into nouns in English). Moreover, 'ferocity' and 'reciprocity'
are the only derived words we can think of which have a 'c' spelling to
represent the /s/ sound. The fact that Eric Dixon has added an ending
to 'meaning' which is so rare in derivational terms means that we form
a new significance by combining 'meaning' with our understandings of the
words which share the unusual derivational ending. These new words he
is describing thus have meaning with attitude!
Signifiness - Adjectives ending in '-y' (e.g. 'happy', pretty'
can be turned into noun nouns by substituting '-iness' for '-y'). But
'signify' is not an adjective but a verb. We thus get an 'illegal' derivation,
which would, of course, increase the significance we would attach to it
(breaking rules always attracts attention). Like 'snugcompactunit', this
word appears to mimic what it refers to.
Pregnanticative - Like 'meaningocity', this word takes an existing
word in English ( the adjective 'pregnant') and adds an ending which does
not change the word class of the word. The various forms of the -ive'
ending all indicate an adjectival function for the word. '-icative' is
a bit more general as an ending than '-ocity' (cf. 'indicate'/'indicative',
'fricate/fricative', 'explicate'/'explicative'). '-icative' is thus used
to derive adjectives from Latinate verbs ending in '-ate'). The result
is an adjective both grand-sounding and 'pregnant with meaning'.
Gistisms - 'Gist' is a noun meaning the substance or summary of
an argument or debating point. '-ism' is a suffix which derives nouns
from adjectives (cf. 'real'/'realism', 'modern'/'modernism'). Here the
former use appears to be the most relevant, but as we have seen before
in this poem, the derivation is strictly unnecessary, as 'gist' is already
a noun. Adding the '-ism' ending thus has the effect of making more general
(and thus more vague) something which is already a word which refers to
a summary rather than an exact matter.
Inventorised - Although unusual, like 'neologising' this word is
not strictly a neologism, though rare. An inventory is a list and 'inventorise'
means to make a list. 'Inventorised' is the past participle of 'inventorise'.
Of course it is rather difficult to see how you make a list of 'purnotations'
(the next highlighted word in the poem, which 'inventorised' modifies),
as we don't know what they are. And of course this is part of the playful
effect of the poem. It talks about neologisms and their effects, but only
some of the words, which appear at first sight to be neologisms, actually
turn out to be new words! In this vein, inventorising, or the making of
lists, looks to be a playful dig at 'Language and Style'. Introductory
courses in Stylistics try to make students more analytical and explicit
about how texts acquire the meanings and significances they have, something
which, until they do the course, they will have worked out intuitively.
Analysing how they do it is thus bound to seem a bit alien at first.
Purnotation - The '-tion' ending derives nouns from verbs (cf.
'annotate'/'annotation', 'connote'/'connotation'). Thus, given that the
poem is talking about meaning, this word is likely to bring be felt to
have a meaning partly related to connotation and association, both well-known
aspects of meaning. But 'purno-' has no obvious meaning. There is no such
prefix. Though there are quite a lot of words in English beginning with
'per-', derived from the Latin word meaning 'through', including a number
involving 'm' (e.g. 'permutation', 'permanent'. This word is thus an invention,
or nonce-word, which, like all the other Latinate 'derivations', sounds
rather grand, and is vaguely to do with meaning. For some people it may
also have vaguely lewd associations because of the closeness of the first
half of the word to 'pornographic' and related words.
Thrungefuttock - This completely invented word provides a stark
contrast with the other neologisms. The others are all grand-sounding,
but this one feels very down to earth, almost rude. 'Thrunge' and 'futtock'
do not exist as English words, but 'thrunge' rhymes with 'lunge' and 'futtock'
is very similar to 'buttock'. These words are Anglo-Saxon in origin and
contrast with the high-sounding quality of the words invented from a Latinate
mould. Hence the final neologism which ends the poem brings us down to
earth with a bump, after all the high-sounding woffle about meaning in
the rest of the poem.
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