libfix

In linguistics, a libfix is a productive bound morpheme affix created by rebracketing and back-formation, often a generalization of a component of a blended or portmanteau word. For example, ''walkathon'' was coined in 1932 as a blend of ''walk'' and ''marathon'', and soon thereafter the ''-athon'' part was reinterpreted as a libfix meaning "event or activity lasting a long time or involving a great deal of something". Words formed with this suffix include ''talkathon'', ''telethon'', ''hackathon'', and so on. Affixes whose morpheme boundaries are etymologically based, and which are used in their original sense, are not libfixes. Libfixes often utilise epenthesis, as in the example of ''-holism'' and ''-holic'' which are joined with consonant-final segments via the vowel ⟨a⟩, creating ''work-a-holism'' or ''sex-a-holism''.

History

''Splinters'' were defined by Berman in 1961 as non-morphemic word fragments. This includes not just libfixes, but also word fragments which become words, like ''burger'' (< ''hamburger''), ''flu'' (< ''influenza''), and ''net'' (< ''network'').

The name ''libfix'' was coined by Arnold Zwicky in 2010 as a blend of "liberated" and "affix" specifically for splinters used as productive morphemes.

Criticism

Some of these formations have been considered barbarisms by prescriptive writers on style,Tom McArthur, ed., ''The Oxford companion to the English language'', 1992, , ''s.v.'' 'Greek', p. 453-454 though other writers have praised them. Speaking of the ''-tron'' suffix, a philologist commented:

I once heard an unkind critic allude disparagingly to these neologisms as dog-Greek. To a lover of the language of Sophocles and Plato these recent coinages may indeed appear to be Greek debased. More appropriately, perhaps, they might be termed lion-Greek or chameleon-Greek. They are Neo-Hellenic in the genuine Renaissance tradition.

Examples

Each example gives the affix, the source word(s) from which it was formed, the meaning, and examples.

This list does not include:
* affixes based on English words like ''tech'' or ''burger'' used literally, even if they are shortened forms, in this case, for ''technology'' and ''hamburger'';
* affixes which are aligned in form and meaning with their etymological source, like ''-(o)cracy'' or ''-orama'' in ''cyclorama'' and ''diorama'' from 'spectacle'; ''motorama'' is a portmanteau of ''motor'' and ''orama'', not a compound of ''mot-'' and ''-orama'';
* words which have been separated from phrases, ''e.g.'' ''fu'' from ''kung fu''.

English

Suffixes

; ''-ana''
:things related to a given person, place, period
:: ''Churchilliana'', ''Americana'', ''Victoriana''
; ''-ase''
:an enzyme
::''lactase'', ''polymerase''
; ''-cation''
:kinds of vacation
::''staycation'', ''girlcation''
; ''-copter''
:having a spinning rotor allowing for flight
::'' gyrocopter''
; ''-core''
: aesthetic, hardcore punk derivatives, hardcore techno derivatives
::'' speedcore'', ''grindcore'', '' cottagecore'', ''bardcore''
; ''-dar''
:the skill of detecting qualities or things
:: ''gaydar'', ''humordar'', ''Jewdar''
; ''-erati''
:groups of people with common interests
::'' digerati'', '' glitterati''
; ''-flation''
:economic inflation in a particular field
::'' tipflation'', ''stagflation'', '' shrinkflation''
; ''-gasm''
:an intensely pleasurable experience
::''foodgasm'', ''cargasm'', ''shoegasm'', ''nerdgasm''
; ''-gate''
:a scandal
::''gamergate'', '' troopergate''; see List of "-gate" scandals
; ''-(m)(a)geddon''
:major disasters (usually facetious)
::''snowgeddon'', ''Irmageddon''
; ''-(a)holic'', ''-(a)holism''
:addict(ed)
::'' shopaholic'', ''workaholic'', '' sexaholic''; see English terms suffixed with -holic
; ''-kini''
:type of bathing suit
::''burkini'', ''monokini'', ''tankini''
; ''-(i/e/a/∅)licious''
:a high degree of some property (usually jocular)
::''bootylicious'', ''babelicious'', ''yummalicious'', ''sacrilicious'', ''crunchalicious''
; ''-(o)nomics''
:an economic policy or philosophy
::''Reaganomics'', ''freakonomics''
; ''-ola''
:used to form commercial products; later, for forms of bribery
::''Victrola'', ''moviola'', ''shinola''; ''payola'', ''plugola''
; ''-oma''
:a kind of tumor, swelling, or cancer
::''melanoma'', ''adenoma'', '' papilloma''
; ''-ome'', ''-omics''
: a map of a biological system; and other uses in biology
:: ''connectome'', ''proteome''; ''biome'', ''rhizome'', ''vacuome''
; ''-on''
:an elementary particle or quasiparticle
::''proton'', ''neutron'', ''meson'', ''phonon'', ''etc.''; see List of particles
; ''-preneur''
:an entrepreneur in some domain
:: '' intrapreneur'', '' ecopreneur'', '' mompreneur''
; ''-pocalypse''
: a catastrophic event
::''snowpocalypse'', ''robopocalypse'', ''beepocalypse''
; ''-tard''
:people who are foolish or stupid; pejorative
::''fucktard'', ''libtard''
; ''-(a)thon'', ''-a-thon''
:things that last a long time or require remarkable endurance
::'' walkathon'', ''telethon'', ''hackathon''
; ''-tron''
:a kind of vacuum tube; a subatomic particle; a device
:: ''magnetron''; ''positron''; ''cyclotron''
; ''-verse''
: the collection of all things in a category, or a fictional universe
:: ''blogoverse'', ''Twitterverse'', '' Whoniverse''
; ''-wich''
:sandwich
::''fishwich'', ''hamwich'', ''snackwich''
; '' -zilla''
:monstrous, scary, or large things; can function as an augmentative and pejorative
:: ''bridezilla'', Mozilla

Prefixes

; ''alt-''
:outside the mainstream
::''alt-rock'', ''alt-right''
; ''cyber-''
:issues or policies related to computers
::''cyberspace'', ''cybercrime''
; ''eco-''
:related to the environment, to ecology, or to sustainability
::''eco-terrorism'', '' eco-nationalism'', '' eco-investing''
; ''econo-''
:related to economics; economical, inexpensive
::''econometrics'' (not *''economometrics''), ''econophysics''; '' econobox''
; ''franken-''
:related to “human efforts to interfere with nature”
:: ''frankenfood'', ''frankenplant'', ''frankenscience''
; ''glut-''
:related to glutamic acid, one of the amino acids
::''glutamine'', ''glutamate''
; ''heli-''
:types of helicopters; things related to helicopters''Oxford English Dictionary''
''s.v.'' heli-, ''combining form''
/ref>
:: ''helibus''; ''helipad'', ''heliport'', '' helidrome'', ''heliborne''
; ''petro-''
:things related to petroleum
::'' petrodollar'', ''petrochemical'', '' petrocurrency''
; ''syn-''
:synthetic; related to (musical) synthesizers
:: ''syngas'', '' synfuel'', '' syncrude'', ''Synclavier''

Italian

Suffix

; ''-opoli''
:a scandal
::'' Bancopoli'', '' Calciopoli''

Bibliography

* Bernard Fradin, "Combining forms, blends, and related phenomena", in Ursula Doleschal, Anna M. Thornton, eds., ''Extragrammatical and Marginal Morphology'', ''LINCOM studies in theoretical linguistics'' 12 (2000), , papers from a workshop in Vienna, 1996, p. 11-5
full text
* Otto Jespersen, ''Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin'', 1922, 19''
13-15
* Muriel Norde, Sara Sippach, "''Nerdalicious scientainment'': A network analysis of English libfixes", ''Word Structure'' 12:3:353-384 {{doi, 10.3366/word.2019.0153.
* Yuval Pinter, Cassandra L. Jacobs, Max Bittker. "NYTWIT: A Dataset of Novel Words in the New York Times", ''Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computational Linguistics'' (Barcelona), p. 6509–6515, December 8–13, 2020
full text
* Neal Whitman, "A linguistic tour of the best libfixes, from ''-ana'' to ''-zilla'', ''The Week''
September 17, 2013

* Arnold Zwicky, "Playing with your Morphology", ''Language Log''
August 28, 2006

Notes

Word coinage
Affixes