Why are prolific neologists like Milton, Chaucer, and Shakespeare praised for coining new words while Sarah Palin is mocked for inventing a term like “refudiate”? Gene Veith, the Provost and Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, explains how words are (legitimately) invented:
First of all, there needs to be a need for a new word, a “semantic space” in the language that needs to be filled. Let’s use some of Milton’s words as examples. His day, like ours, had a lot of “worship wars” in the Church of England. The word “liturgy” existed. But, earlier, that was pretty much the only kind of worship there was. There was a need for an adjectival form of that word to distinguish that type of worship from the alternatives. So Milton turned the existing noun into an adjective by adding a Latin adjectival ending. Hence a new word that we use today in our own worship wars: “liturgical.”
An even better, because more poetic, example: The new Copernican cosmology meant that the earth and the planets spin around in a vast void. In Paradise Lost, Milton needed to write about Satan flying to earth. Dante in the Middle Ages had imagined Hell as existing in the center of the earth. Milton imagines it more like another planet. The word “space” existed to refer to expanse, area, extent. Milton took that word and made it refer to the realm beyond earth’s atmosphere. Satan flew through “space.” What great poetry! Imagine hearing that poetic image for the first time. But now we have a new word, one that names something that was nameless before.
December 23rd, 2010 | 1:48 pm
I could not resist the urge to chime in on this topic. I could go on at great length about it, but I will restrain myself.
First, I kind of like “refudiate”. I am not a big Palin fan (will she be the first person to obtain high office through a career in reality T.V.? Tune in to find out.), but I actually think that term is an example of how we create interesting new words by mashing together ones that are more established.
I appreciate what professor Veith has to say about how Milton coined new words, but, Joe, I take exception to your assertion that the creation of new words is only the province of great poets. I think that, especially in English, new words enter the language by a variety of paths. Often the best ones are those that percolate from below. Where would we be without, for example, “gotcha” or “ok”.
We also take in words from other languages and the various dialects of English. Sometimes in the case of the latter, these are preserved from older forms of the language. Think of the much disparaged and “grammatically incorrect” Black English. “I be going to the store” is an expression that lies somewhere between the present perfect and the future. Compare it to “Here there be tygers.” Some of what Shakespeare did, at least as I understand it (and I stand open to correction) was not so much create new words, although he did some of that, as put into writing words and expressions already in use in the vernacular of the day.
The real villains, those who, in my opinion, commit the greatest crimes against the language, are academics, bureaucrats and (let’s not leave out the private sector), corporate PR flacks. They, out of a variety of motivations, invent, appropriate or distort words not for the purpose of expressing something new or to achieve greater precision, but rather to try to impose an agenda (this is not exclusive to any point on the political spectrum, I believe), or to confuse or exclude the uninitiated. In other words, they invent words for the purpose of extending or consolidating their power.
That is what Orwell railed against in “Politics and the English Language”.
December 24th, 2010 | 3:33 am
I am reminded of a remark by G K Chesterton
“The phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle: for a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition. Phrases like “put out” or “off colour” might have been coined by Mr. Henry James in an agony of verbal precision.” (Orthodoxy, Chapter 3 pr)
December 24th, 2010 | 10:26 am
Palin didn’t invent “refudiate,” for pete’s sake, she conflated “refute” and “repudiate” out of ignorance and confusion. She’s also a jerk, so she was mocked for doing so.
December 24th, 2010 | 2:36 pm
Michael,
Nice quote from Chesterton, couldn’t have said it better myself :)
Ken,
I think that both Joe and I understand that Palin’s “invention” of “refudiate” was most likely not a deliberate act on her part. But, unintentional word mashups like that one do sometimes make it into the language, perhaps because they manage to say something new or perhaps just because of how they sound. Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I’ve come up with some accidental neologisms that way.
In Palin’s case, I think it shows the danger of trying to make public policy statements via Twitter.
Merry Christmas,
Peter
December 27th, 2010 | 4:10 pm
It has become an automatic reflex that if Palin’s name is mentioned, people simply cannot refrain from announcing their dislike, even extraneously. Just unable to contain themselves, like some political Tourette’s manifestation.
What Veith writes is true enough, in reference to intentional inventions of precise terms. But most new words come into being not because a space needs to be filled, but because it can be filled. Language grows like vines in a jungle, soaking up every avenue of sunlight and unused moisture source present. Fecund, profligate, aggressive, growth – much more cleverness and complexity than we really need to get by, actually.
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