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-nik
The English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun (that is, it describes a person related to the thing, state, habit, or action described by the word to which the suffix is attached).V. V. Kabakchi, Charles Clay Doyle"Of Sputniks, Beatniks, and Nogoodniks" '' American Speech'', Vol. 65, No. 3 (1990), pp. 275-278 In the cases where a native English language coinage may occur, the "-nik"-word often bears an ironic connotation, as in the case of the terms coined for the failed rocket launch of the U.S. satellite rival to Sputnik, such as ''kaputnik, dudnik'' and ''flopnik'' among others. History The suffix existed in English for a long time. An example is '' raskolnik'', recorded by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as known since 1723. There have been two main waves of the introduction of this suffix into English language. The first was driven by Yinglish words contributed by Yiddish speakers from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agent Noun
In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, ) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, ''driver'' is an agent noun formed from the verb ''drive''. Usually, ''derived'' in the above definition has the strict sense attached to it in morphology, that is the derivation takes as an input a lexeme (an abstract unit of morphological analysis) and produces a new lexeme. However, the classification of morphemes into derivational morphemes (see word formation) and inflectional ones is not generally a straightforward theoretical question, and different authors can make different decisions as to the general theoretical principles of the classification as well as to the actual classification of morphemes presented in a grammar of some language (for example, of the agent noun-forming morpheme). Words related to agent noun An agentive suffix or agentive prefix is commonly used to form an agent noun from a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beatnik
Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti- materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms of art, such as literature, poetry, music, and painting. They also experimented with spirituality, drugs, sexuality, and travel. The term "beatnik" was coined by ''San Francisco Chronicle'' columnist Herb Caen in 1958, as a derogatory label for the followers of the Beat Generation, a group of influential writers and artists who emerged during the era of the Silent Generation's maturing, from as early as 1946, to as late as 1963, but the subculture was at its most prevalent in the 1950s. This lifestyle of anti-consumerism may have been influenced by their generation living in extreme poverty in the Great Depression during their formative years, seeing slightly older people serve in WWII and being influenced by the rise of left-wing poli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potatonik
Potatonik may refer to two distinct potato-based dishes derived from Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. One version is a hybrid between potato kugel and bread, containing shredded potatoes and onions as well as ample flour and leavened with yeast. Another dish, apparently unrelated but called by the same name, is essentially a very large latke meant to be cut into wedges at the table. It is also known as geribinik. "Potatonik" is an Anglicization of the Yiddish ''kartoflnik'' that appeared in Ashkenazi-American communities – the word ''kartofl'' is one of many Yiddish terms for potato, and the suffix ''-nik'' indicates something associated with a specified thing or quality and creates an "agent noun" in Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- .... According to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Capp
Alfred Gerald Caplin (September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip ''Li'l Abner'', which he created in 1934 and continued writing and (with help from assistants) drawing until 1977. He also wrote the comic strips '' Abbie an' Slats'' (in the years 1937–45) and '' Long Sam'' (1954). He won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their 1979 Elzie Segar Award, posthumously for his "unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning". Capp's comic strips dealt with urban experiences in the Northern United States until the year he introduced "Li'l Abner". Although Capp was from Connecticut, he spent 43 years writing about the fictional Southern town of Dogpatch, reaching an estimated 60 million readers in more than 900 American newspapers and 100 more papers in 28 countries internationally. M. Thomas Inge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Badenov
Boris Badenov is an antagonist character in the 1959–1964 animated series ''Rocky and His Friends'' and ''The Bullwinkle Show'', so often appearing with his devious accomplice, Natasha Fatale, that the two are usually grouped together, as Boris and Natasha, a reference to Boris Drubetskoy and Natasha Rostova in Tolstoy’s ''War and Peace''. He was originally voiced by Paul Frees. The character was created by Bill Scott, who based his appearance on that of Gomez Addams. Badenov's name is a pun on that of 16th-century Russian tsar Boris Godunov (i.e., "good enough" vs. "bad enough"). His accent and explosive temper are a homage to Hollywood actor Akim Tamiroff, especially his role in '' The Great McGinty''. Boris is a spy from the fictional nation of Pottsylvania, and takes orders from the strongman known as Fearless Leader (and occasionally the rarely seen Mr. Big). Boris's missions range from trying to steal a secret rocket fuel formula to eliminating all television ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slavic Languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Early Middle Ages, which in turn is thought to have descended from the earlier Proto-Balto-Slavic language, linking the Slavic languages to the Baltic languages in a Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic group within the Indo-European family. The current geographical distribution of natively spoken Slavic languages includes the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe, and all the way from Western Siberia to the Russian Far East. Furthermore, the diasporas of many Slavic peoples have established isolated minorities of speakers of their languages all over the world. The number of speakers of all Slavic languages together was estimated to be 315 million at the turn of the twenty-first century. It is the largest and most d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kibbutz
A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including Factory, industrial plants and high-tech Business, enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism. In recent decades, some kibbutzim have been Privatization, privatized and changes have been made in the communal lifestyle. A member of a kibbutz is called a ''kibbutznik'' ( / ; plural ''kibbutznikim'' or ''kibbutzniks''), the suffix ''-nik'' being of Slavic languages, Slavic origin. In 2010, there were 270 kibbutzim in Israel with a total population of 126,000. Their factories and farms account for 9% of Israel's industrial output, worth US$8 billion, and 40% of its agricultural output, worth over US$1.7 billion. Some kibbutzim had also developed substantial high-tech and mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries became depleted. Aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958. It was a polished metal sphere in diameter with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by amateur radio operators, and the 65° orbital inclination made its flight path cover virtually the entire inhabited Earth. The satellite's success was unanticipated by the United States. This precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race. The launch was the beginning of a new era of political, military, technological, and scientific developments. The word ''sputnik'' is Russian for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Li'l Abner
''Li'l Abner'' was a satirical American comic strip that appeared in multiple newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies living in the impoverished fictional mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and illustrated by Al Capp (1909–1979), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934, through November 13, 1977. The Sunday page debuted on February 24, 1935, six months after the daily. It was originally distributed by United Feature Syndicate and later by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Before Capp introduced Li'l Abner, his comic strips typically dealt with northern urban American experiences. However, Li'l Abner was his first strip based in the Southern United States. The comic strip had 60 million readers in over 900 American newspapers and 100 foreign papers across 28 countries. Characters Main characters * Li'l Abner Yokum: Abner is portrayed as a simple-minded, gullible, and sweet-natured countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muttnik
Laika ( ; , ; – 3 November 1957) was a Soviet space dog who was one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit the Earth. A stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow, she flew aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft, launched into low orbit on 3 November 1957. As the technology to re-enter the atmosphere had not yet been developed, Laika's survival was never expected. She died of hyperthermia hours into the flight, on the craft's fourth orbit. Little was known about the effects of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and animal flights were viewed by engineers as a necessary precursor to human missions. The experiment, which monitored Laika's vital signs, aimed to prove that a living organism could survive being launched into orbit and continue to function under conditions of weakened gravity and increased radiation, providing scientists with some of the first data on the biological effects of spaceflight. Laika's death was possibly cause ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nouveau Riche
; ), new rich, or new money (in contrast to old money; ) is a social class of the rich whose wealth has been acquired within their own generation, rather than by familial inheritance. These people previously had belonged to a lower social class and economic stratum (rank) within that class and the term implies that the new money, which constitutes their wealth, allowed upward social mobility and provided the means for conspicuous consumption, the buying of goods and services that signal membership in an upper class. As a pejorative term, ''nouveau riche'' affects distinctions of type, the given stratum within a social class; hence, among the rich people of a social class, ''nouveau riche'' describes the vulgarity and ostentation of the newly rich person who lacks the worldly experience and the system of values of ''old money'', of inherited wealth, such as the patriciate, the nobility, and the gentry. History The idea of ''nouveau riche'' dates at least as far back as ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wordnik
Wordnik, a nonprofit organization, is an online English dictionary and language resource that provides dictionary and thesaurus content. Some of the content is based on print dictionaries such as the ''Century Dictionary'', the ''American Heritage Dictionary'', WordNet, and GCIDE. Wordnik has collected a corpus of billions of words which it uses to display example sentences, allowing it to provide information on a much larger set of words than a typical dictionary. Wordnik uses as many real examples as possible when defining a word. Wiktionary, the free open dictionary project, is one major source of words and citations used by Wordnik. History Wordnik.com was launched as a closed beta in February 2008 and opened to all in June 2009. Cofounders of the site are CEO Erin McKean, editorial director Grant Barrett, and chief computational lexicographer Orion Montoya, and head of engineering Anthony Tam. McKean, Barrett, and Montoya all formerly worked in the US Dictionaries Depart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
