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Inkhorn Term
An inkhorn term is a loanword, or a word coined from existing roots, which is deemed to be unnecessary or over-pretentious. Etymology An inkhorn is an inkwell made of horn. It was an important item for many scholars, which soon became symbolic of writers in general. Later, it became a byword for fussy or pedantic writers. The phrase "inkhorn term" is found as early as 1553. Adoption Controversy over inkhorn terms was rife from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century when English competed with Latin as the main language of science and learning in England, having just displaced French. Many words, often self-consciously borrowed from classical literature, were deemed useless by critics who argued that the understanding of these redundant borrowings depends on knowledge of classical languages. Some borrowings filled a technical or scientific semantic gap, but others coexisted with Germanic words, often overtaking them. Writers such as Thomas Elyot and George Pettie were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inkhorn And Ivory Case, 9th-13th C, Exh
An inkhorn term is a loanword, or a word coined from existing roots, which is deemed to be unnecessary or over-pretentious. Etymology An inkhorn is an inkwell made of horn (anatomy), horn. It was an important item for many scholars, which soon became symbolic of writers in general. Later, it became a byword for fussy or pedantic writers. The phrase "inkhorn term" is found as early as 1553. Adoption Controversy over inkhorn terms was rife from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century when English competed with Latin as the main language of science and learning in England, having just displaced French. Many words, often self-consciously borrowed from classical literature, were deemed useless by critics who argued that the understanding of these redundant borrowings depends on knowledge of classical languages. Some borrowings filled a technical or scientific semantic gap, but others coexisted with Germanic languages, Germanic words, often overtaking them. Writers such as Thomas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latinate
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, including English, having contributed many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, the sciences, medicine, and law. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin refers to the less prestigious colloquial registers, attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of the comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius. While ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word Coinage
In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term that can refer to either: * the processes through which words can change (i.e. morphology), or * the creation of new lexemes in a particular language Morphological A common method of word formation is the attachment of inflectional or derivational affixes. Derivation Examples include: * the words ''governor'', ''government'', ''governable'', ''misgovern'', ''ex-governor'', and ''ungovernable'' are all derived from the base word ''(to) govern'' Inflection Inflection is modifying a word for the purpose of fitting it into the grammatical structure of a sentence. For example: * ''manages'' and ''managed'' are inflected from the base word ''(to) manage'' * ''worked'' is inflected from the verb ''(to) work'' * ''talks'', ''talked'', and ''talking'' are inflected from the base ''(to) talk'' Nonmorphological Abbreviation Examples includes: * ''etc.'' from et cetera Acronyms & Initialisms An acronym is a word formed from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglish
Purism in the linguistic field is the historical trend of languages to conserve intact their lexical structure of word families, in opposition to foreign influences which are considered 'impure'. Historically, linguistic purism in English is a reaction to the great number of borrowings in the English language from other languages, especially Old French, since the -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ..., since the Norman conquest of England, and some of its native vocabulary and grammar have been supplanted by features of Latinate and Greek origin. Efforts to remove or consider the removal of foreign terms in English are often known as Anglish, a term coined by author and humorist Paul Jennings in 1966. English linguistic purism has persisted in diverse forms since the inkhorn term">Paul Jennings (British author)">Paul Jennings in 1966. English linguistic purism has persisted in diver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncleftish Beholding
"Uncleftish Beholding" is a short text by Poul Anderson, first published in the Mid-December 1989 issue of the magazine ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' (with no indication of its fictional or factual status) and included in his anthology ''All One Universe'' (1996). It is designed to illustrate what English might look like without its large number of words derived from languages such as French, Greek, and Latin, especially with regard to the proportion of scientific words with origins in those languages. Written as a demonstration of linguistic purism in English, the work explains atomic theory using Germanic words almost exclusively and coining new words when necessary; many of these new words have cognates in modern German, an important scientific language in its own right. The title phrase ''uncleftish beholding'' calques "atomic theory." To illustrate, the text begins: It goes on to define ''firststuffs'' (chemical elements), such as ''waterstuff'' (hydrogen), ''sour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prestige (sociolinguistics)
Prestige in sociolinguistics is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior. In many cases, they are the standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige (where a non-standard dialect is highly valued). In addition to dialects and languages, prestige is also applied to smaller linguistic features, such as the pronunciation or usage of words or grammatical constructs, which may not be distinctive enough to constitute a separate dialect. The concept of prestige provides one explanation for the phenomenon of variation in form among speakers of a language or languages. The presence of prestige dialects is a result of the relationship between the prestige of a group of people and the langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plain Language
Plain language is writing designed to ensure the reader understands as quickly, easily, and completely as possible. Plain language strives to be easy to read, understand, and use. It avoids verbose, convoluted language and jargon. In many countries, laws mandate that public agencies use plain language to increase access to programs and services. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities includes plain language in its definition of ''communication''. Definition Most literacy and communications scholars agree that plain language means: * "Plain language (also called Plain English) is communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it" ( Plainlanguage.gov) * "Clear and effective communication." ( Joseph Kimble) * "The idiomatic and grammatical use of language that most effectively presents ideas to the reader." ( Bryan Garner) * "Clear, straightforward expression, using only as many words as are necessary. It is language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franglais
Franglais () or Frenglish ( ) is a French blend that referred first to the overuse of English words by French speakers and later to diglossia or the macaronic mixture of French () and English (). Etymology The word ''Franglais'' was first attested in French in 1959, but it was popularised by the academic, novelist, and critic René Étiemble in his denunciation of the overuse of English words in French, published in 1964. Earlier than the French term was the English label ''Frenglish'', first recorded in 1937. Other colloquial blends for French-influenced English include ''Franglish'' (recorded from 1967), ''Frenchlish'' (1974), and ''Fringlish'' (1982). English sense In English, ''Franglais'' means a combination of English and French. It evokes the linguistic concepts of mixed language and barbarism. Reasons for this blend could be caused by lexical gaps, native bilingualism, populations trying to imitate a language where they have no fluency (sometimes known as creol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Compound
Neoclassical compounds are compound words composed from combining forms (which act as affixes or stems) derived from Classical_language#Classical_studies, classical languages (classical Latin or ancient Greek) root (linguistics), roots. Neo-Latin comprises many such words and is a substantial component of the technology, technical and science, scientific lexicon of English language, English and other languages, via international scientific vocabulary (ISV). For example, Greek ''wikt:bio-#Prefix, bio-'' combines with ''wikt:-graphy#Suffix, -graphy'' to form ''biography'' ("life" + "writing/recording"). Source of international technical vocabulary Neoclassical compounds represent a significant source of Neo-Latin vocabulary. Moreover, since these words are composed from classical languages whose prestige is or was respected throughout the Western European culture, these words typically appear in many different languages. Their widespread use makes technical writing generally acces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a new word or phrase ( lexeme) in the target language. For instance, the English word ''skyscraper'' has been calqued in dozens of other languages, combining words for "sky" and "scrape" in each language, as for example in German, in Portuguese, in Dutch, in Spanish, in Italian, in Turkish, and ''matenrō'' in Japanese. Calques, like direct borrowings, often function as linguistic gap-fillers, emerging when a language lacks existing vocabulary to express new ideas, technologies, or objects. This phenomenon is widespread and is often attributed to the shared conceptual frameworks across human languages. Speakers of different languages tend to perceive the world through common categori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aureation
Aureation ("to make golden", from ) is a device in arts of rhetoric that involves the " gilding" (or supposed heightening) of diction in one language by the introduction of terms from another, typically a classical language considered to be more prestigious. Aureation commonly involves other mannered rhetorical features in diction; for example circumlocution, which bears a relation to more native literary devices such as the kenning. It can be seen as analogous to Gothic schools of ornamentation in carving, painting, or ceremonial armoury. In terms of prosody it stands in direct contrast to plain language and its use is sometimes regarded, by current standards of literary taste, as overblown and exaggerated. But aureated expression does not necessarily mean loss of precision or authenticity in poetry when handled by good practitioners. Loanwords and neologisms In the context of language development, aureation can be seen as an extension of processes in which historically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Politics And The English Language
"Politics and the English Language" (1946) is an essay by George Orwell that criticised the "ugly and inaccurate" written English of his time and examined the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language. The essay focused on political language, which, according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind". Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it. This unclear prose was a "contagion" which had spread to those who did not intend to hide the truth, and it concealed a writer's thoughts from himself and others. Orwell encourages concreteness and clarity instead of vagueness, and individuality over political conformity. Summary Orwell relates what he believes to be a close association between bad prose and oppressive ideology: One of Orwell's points is: The insincerit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
