Some writers make abundant use of this word-building means.

Thus Arthur Hailey in his novel "In High Places" has 'serious-faced', 'high-ceilinged', * beige-carpeted', 'tall-backed', * horn-rimmed' in almost close proximity. There is, however, one means of creating new poetic words still recognized as productive even in present-day English, viz. the use of a contracted form of a word instead of the full one, e. g. * drear' instead of dreary, 'scant' (—scanty). Sometimes the reverse process leads to the birth of a poeticism, e. g. * vasty' (=vast. * The vasty deep', i. e. the ocean); 'steepy' (=steep), 'paly' (=pale).

 

Semantic word-building, that is, giving an old word a new meaning, is rarely employed by writers who coin new words for journalistic pur­poses. It is too slow and imperceptible in its growth to produce any kind of sensational effect.

Conversion, derivation and change of meaning may be registered as means by which literary-bookish coinages are formed. These three means of word-building are mostly used to coin new terms in which new mean­ings are imposed on old words. Among coinages of this kind the word accessories may be mentioned.

 

As has been pointed out, word-building by means of affixation is still predominant in coining new words. Examples are: arbiter—'a spacecraft designed to orbit a celestial body'; lander—'a spacecraft designed to land on such a body'; missileer—'a person skilled in missilery or in the launching and control of missiles'; fruitologist and wreckologist which were used in a letter to the editor of The times from a person living in Australia. Another monster of the ink-horn type is the word overdichotomize—'to split something into too many parts', which is commented upon in an article in New York Times Magazine:

"It is, alas, too much to expect that this fine flower of lan­guage, a veritable hot-house specimen—combining as it does a vogue word with a vogue suffix—will long survive."*

 

There is still another means of word-building in modern English which may be considered voguish at the present time, and that is the blending of two words into one by curtailing the end of the first com­ponent or the beginning of the second. Examples are numerous: musico-medy (music+comedy); cinemactress (cinema+actress); avigation (avia-tion+navigation); and the already recognized blends like smog- (smoke+ fog); chortle (chuckle+snort); galumph (triumph+gallop) (both occur in Humpty Dumpty's poem in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass"). Arockoon (focket+balloon) is 'a rocket designed to be launched from a balloon'. Such words are called blends

 

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