Blog 2 - Word-Blending at its Finest

A couple months ago, my mom was driving Marty, a friend of mine, and myself from a track and field meet in New Hampshire. The two of us were raving about a phenomenal runner who broke several league records. In keeping with my typical vocabulary, I called him filthy. My mother was utterly bewildered. She couldn’t understand how a word like “filthy” could possibly mean exceptionally talented. When I first thought about it, I couldn’t either. Filthy and talented seem like entirely unrelated if not opposing words. For that matter, I also couldn’t grasp how “grimy” and “filthy,” nearly synonymous in traditional English, could essentially be antonyms in popular slang.

I suppose that words are always dynamic; they gradually morph and eventually stray from their original meanings. Although the word “filthy” has a precise definition that may not change significantly over time, perhaps its connotations slowly shifted for various almost arbitrary reasons. For instance, the phrase “filthy rich” stems from the phrase “filthy lucre” which arose from works written by 14th century authors such as Chaucer and John Wyclif.* The term “filthy lucre” transformed into “the filthy,” used as a slang reference to money. By the 1920’s “the filthy” turned into the now common phrase “filthy rich.”

However, this nearly 600 year long slow progression of meanings doesn’t fully explain my mom’s confusion or even why the International Herald Tribune thinks it needs to publish a translation of young adults’ slang for its readership.** Some forces must act far quicker on languages to change words’ meanings drastically between generations. I think that this influence can be attributed to adolescent creativity, which expresses itself mostly through a process of “word-blending,” which takes two words and blends them together. But this creativity is not restricted to our generation, which has produced such beautiful and profound words as “fauxhawk,” “butterface,” and “sexile.” Rather, it extends well into history and past generations. For instance, the word “electrocute” originated in 1889 as a mixture between electricity and execute.*** Some writers have proposed that even older words, such as bash, are also mixtures of multiple words.

So, I guess that some of the strange concoctions of words that we hurl around everyday in jest (I think sexile is an excellent example) will one day become parts of accepted language. We’re all part of a never-ending cycle: We creatively alter the traditional meanings of words and use them so persistently that their new meanings eventually become traditional again. Then the next generation will change this meaning yet again, and we’ll all need the International Herald Tribune to publish a mini-dictionary to clarify the meaning of the young people’s crazy new words.



On a side note, I read an article about Lucknow University trying to teach Persian language by dubbing Hindi movies.**** I have to applaud Lucknow University because this idea is simply brilliant. I know that my own Hindi has improved drastically simply by watching Bollywood films. What could inspire you to learn more than absolute melodrama, outbursts of dance, and thousands of costume changes? But actually, they really do work. By watching movies and simply listening to the actors and actresses speak, one quickly and almost subconsciously picks up syntax and vocabulary. The process is almost analogous to one of immersion. One caveat, however: I think that this methodology should only be used for people who already have some degree of understanding of the language that they are trying to learn. Otherwise the student can quickly tune out audio cues and only look to visual ones to follow the story. Once, I was visiting my cousin in Florida and she took me to school with her one day. In her Spanish class (I don’t know Spanish, quite unfortunately), they watched a dubbed version of Monsters, Inc. I could follow the story because Monster’s Inc. doesn’t exactly have the most complex story line, but I certainly didn’t learn a lick of Spanish (again, quite unfortunately). But otherwise, I think that the Lucknow University strategy will work very well.


Now that I’m done rambling, I think I’ll sign off. I’m looking forward to class tomorrow!

Pdot

*http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/filthy-rich.html
**http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/30/news/edsafire.php
***http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/blend.htm
****http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/009200709301445.htm