#back formation

[coquelicoq]

today in a meeting about a poorly designed study my boss was trying to describe one of the things wrong with it and said "i don't know what to call it, but if we were talking about a word it would be back formation. back formation is...well you all know what it is, i don't have to explain back formation to you." which raised two questions for me: 1) do we all know what back formation is? i know what it is but i have a linguistics degree, so i sort of assumed it's somewhat specialized knowledge. but maybe not? maybe a random assortment of people working in healthcare research could be expected to know what it is. interesting to ponder. and 2) does my boss know what back formation is? because it did not seem super related to what he was talking about. lol.

[trilobiter]

Odd linguistic observation of the day: Unless I am mishearing her, a student of mine seems to be analyzing the word "paranoid" as analogous to "annoyed". Consequently, she is employing the back-formation "parannoy" as a verb meaning "to cause paranoia". I assumed I misheard her the first time, but she said it again later on and I really think that's what she said. Teenagers have such fascinating speech.

[unwelcome-ozian]

Clipping-The shortening of a word in such a way that the new word is used with exactly the same meaning, for example, exam from examination. In general, adults prefer back-clipping, for example, prof for professor, whereas children prefer front-clipping, for example, fessor for professor. Unlike a back-formation, the clipped word has the same part of speech as the full form.

Back-formation-The creation of a new word on the mistaken assumption that an existing word must be derived from it. This usually involves the elimination of an apparent affix or inflection, as in the creation of the verb enthuse from enthusiasm. The term is also applied to a word formed in this way. Also called inverse derivation; retrogressive formation.

[coquelicoq]

when you think of the beloved morphological process of back formation, don't forget the humble bicep, created from the singular noun biceps being reanalyzed as a plural noun with the suffix -s

[coquelicoq]

Hi! Sadly the word "gritter" does not exist in french! It sounds funny, like a mix between "gratter" and "griller" 😂😂

well sure, gritter does not exist in french yet...

[doctorskelegoats]

Oh, it’s a gee [gi]! No, it’s a goose! -finch, age 2

[fractallogic]

A great back formation, courtesy of one of my students:

"registrating"

From "registration".

YES. YES. GO SMALL LINGUIST, GO. USE YOUR LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE.