University of Maribor Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies

Bojan Kašuba

THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE ON THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

MASTER’S THESIS

Maribor, June, 2016 University of Maribor Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies

Bojan Kašuba

THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE ON THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

MASTER’S THESIS

Mentor: Prof. Dr. Nada Šabec

Maribor, June, 2016 Univerza v Mariboru Filozofska fakulteta Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko

Bojan Kašuba

VPLIV SODOBNE AMERIŠKE POPULARNE KULTURE NA ANGLEŠKO BESEDJE

MAGISTRSKO DELO

Mentor: red. prof. dr. Nada Šabec

Maribor, junij, 2016

Magistrsko delo je nastalo na Oddelku za anglistiko in amerikanistiko Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Mariboru s sofinanciranjem Ministrstva za visoko šolstvo, znanost in tehnologijo.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the course of my studies and in the process of writing this thesis, Prof. Dr. Nada Šabec has been extremely helpful in giving invaluable advice. I express my sincerest gratitude for her continual guidance and support. This thesis would not have been possible without her help. Additionally, I would also like to thank the Department of English and American Studies for allowing me to pursue my interests in linguistics. Ms Kirsten Hempkin proofread my Master’s thesis, for which I am extremely grateful.

Finally, my family and friends continuously offered their moral support and provided advice whenever it was needed. Their support is forever appreciated.

IZVLEČEK

Ameriška popularna kultura je kompleksna človekova dejavnost, ki združuje različne družbene, politične, ekonomske in verske aspekte. Ameriška popularna kultura je dvoplastna, saj jo nekateri smatrajo za nizko obliko izražanja, medtem ko jo drugi vidijo kot visoko obliko umetnosti. Velikokrat je opisana kot kič ali šund, katere glavni cilj je proizvodnja in konzumiranje izdelkov. Kljub temu veliko ljudi iz različnih družbenih, kulturnih, političnih, rasnih in verskih okolij soustvarja popularne vsebine, kar dela ameriško popularno kulturo raznoliko, bogato in pestro. V magistrskem delu je predstavljenih nekaj najbolj pomembnih dogodkov ameriške popularne kulture. Naštete in opisane so televizijske oddaje, filmi, pesmi, glasbeniki in druge znane osebe, ki so odločilno vplivale na ameriško popularno kulturo in na ameriški način življenja. Poleg tega magistrsko delo obravnava morfologijo, predvsem besedotvorje. Razloženi so osnovni jezikovni pojmi, kot so morfem, beseda, leksem in afiks. Zaradi lažjega razumevanja nastajanja novih besed so predstavljeni in opisani besedotvorni procesi. Prav tako je podana primerjava med usvajanjem novih besed v maternem in tujem jeziku.

V empiričnem delu magistrskega dela so opisane in analizirane besede, ki so produkt ameriške popularne kulture zadnjih 25 let. Televizijske serije, filmi, pesmi, klasični in elektronski mediji, politika, moda, družbena omrežja in druge oblike popularne kulture predstavljajo vir novo nastalih besed. Novo nastale besede imenujemo neologizmi. Besede so analizirane glede na njihovo etimologijo, sintakso, besedotvorne procese in njihov pomen. Analiza novih besed in besedotvornih procesov bo pokazala, kateri besedotvorni procesi so med najbolj produktivnimi v 21. stoletju. Temeljni cilj magistrskega dela je podrobneje prikazati ameriško popularno kulturo in vpliv le-te na angleško besedje, tj. bolje razumeti vpliv kulture na jezik in obratno. Magistrsko delo omogoča vpogled v ameriško popularno kulturo, morfologijo in neformalno besedje in predstavlja osnovo za nadaljnjo raziskavo ameriške popularne kulture, angleške morfologije in besedja.

Ključne besede: sociolingvistika, ameriška popularna kultura, besedotvorje, neologizmi, klasični in elektronski mediji

UDK: 811.111'27'373.611:316.7(73)(043.2) ABSTRACT

American popular culture is a complex unity of different social, political, economic and religious aspects. It is wrought in duality. Some consider it a low form, while others think of it as high art. It is often described as trash, nothing but a means to produce and consume products. Yet, many people of different social, cultural, political, racial and religious backgrounds create, produce and distribute popular content, in turn making American popular culture diverse, rich and colourful. The thesis presents some of the most important events in American popular culture and also enumerates and describes TV series, films, songs, music artists and other celebrities that have impacted American popular culture and the American way of life. Furthermore, the thesis deals with morphology, primarily word-formation. Basic linguistic terms such as morphemes, words, lexemes and affixes are explained. A detailed examination of word-formation processes is provided in order to better understand how new words are created. Additionally, a brief comparison between first language vocabulary acquisition and foreign language vocabulary acquisition is presented.

The empirical section describes and analyses words which have been created or popularized in American popular culture in the last 25 years. TV series, films, songs, print and electronic media, politics, fashion, social networking websites and other forms of popular culture are examined to find new coinages. Such coinages are called neologisms. The words are analysed and compared according to their etymology, syntax, word-formation processes and meaning. A detailed examination of new words and their word-formation processes is provided in order to find out which word-formation processes are among the most productive in the 21st century. The main aim of this thesis is to provide a closer look at American popular culture and its influence on the English vocabulary, i.e. to better understand how culture can affect language and vice versa. Additionally, the thesis provides an overview of American popular culture, morphology and non-Standard English vocabulary and serves as a basis for further research of American popular culture, English morphology and vocabulary.

Keywords: sociolinguistics, American popular culture, word-formation, neologisms, print and electronic media

Abbreviations n. / N noun v. / V verb adj. / ADJ adjective adv. / ADV adverb interj. / INTERJ interjection

No. number

/ / phonetic transcription

[ ] ellipsis

> / directionality

' stress

* impossible word

Table of Contents List of Figures ...... I

List of Tables...... II

1 Introduction ...... 1

1.1 Hypotheses ...... 2

1.2 Organization of the M.A. thesis ...... 2

2 Research methods ...... 5

3 Modern American Popular Culture...... 8

3.1 Defining popular culture ...... 13

3.2 The role of media in modern American popular culture ...... 16

3.3 Films and TV series ...... 19

3.3.1 American films ...... 20

3.3.2 American TV series...... 23

3.4 Music ...... 28

3.5 Technology ...... 31

4 Creating new words ...... 35

4.1 Words, acquisition and meaning ...... 39

4.1.1 Vocabulary acquisition...... 39

4.1.2 Words and meaning...... 43

4.2 Word- formation ...... 45

4.2.1 Parts of the word ...... 48

4.2.2 Derivation ...... 50

4.2.3 Compounding ...... 55

4.2.4 Conversion ...... 59

4.2.5 Blending ...... 61

4.2.6 Clipping ...... 62 4.2.7 Abbreviations ...... 63

4.2.8 Back-formation ...... 64

4.3 Semantic shift ...... 65

4.4 Dissemination of new words ...... 66

5 English vocabulary in modern American popular culture ...... 69

5.1 Films and TV series ...... 70

5.1.1 Films ...... 70

5.1.2 TV series ...... 76

5.1.2.1 ...... 79

5.1.2.2 Friends ...... 88

5.1.2.3 ...... 91

5.1.2.4 The Colbert Report ...... 97

5.1.2.5 ...... 100

5.1.2.6 : The Next Generation ...... 101

5.1.2.7 World Wrestling Entertainment ...... 103

5.1.2.8 The Oprah Winfrey Show ...... 105

5.1.2.9 ...... 106

5.1.2.10 Other TV series ...... 107

5.2 Music ...... 115

5.3 Social media ...... 122

5.4 Politics ...... 129

5.5 Fashion ...... 135

5.6 Miscellaneous ...... 138

6 Data analysis ...... 153

6.1 Word origins ...... 153

6.2 Word class ...... 155 6.3 Word-formation processes ...... 156

6.3.1 Compounding ...... 159

6.3.2 Derivation ...... 162

6.3.3 Blending ...... 167

6.3.4 Abbreviations ...... 170

6.3.5 Clipping ...... 171

6.3.6 Conversion ...... 173

6.3.7 Eponyms ...... 174

6.3.8 Semantic shift ...... 176

7 Conclusion ...... 179

8 Povzetek magistrskega dela ...... 185

Literature ...... 203

Sources ...... 207

APPENDIX: Glossary ...... 251

List of Figures

Figure 1: Subsections of morphology (Plag, 2003: 17) ...... 46 Figure 2: Lexeme analysis ...... 49 Figure 3: Terminological distinction between roots and bases (Plag, 2003:11) .... 49 Figure 4: Word classes in percentages ...... 156

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List of Tables

Table 1: Words associated with films ...... 70 Table 2: Words associated with TV series ...... 78 Table 3: Words associated with music ...... 115 Table 4: Words associated with social media ...... 123 Table 5: Words associated with politics...... 130 Table 6: Words associated with fashion...... 135 Table 7: Miscellaneous words ...... 139 Table 8: The number of words associated with American popular culture ...... 154 Table 9: Word classes ...... 155 Table 10: Word-formation processes ...... 157 Table 11: Word class of compounds ...... 159 Table 12: Compound types according to their constituent parts ...... 160 Table 13: Inventory of compound types (Plag, 2003: 144) ...... 160 Table 14: Affixes...... 162 Table 15: Class-maintaining and class-changing affixes ...... 164 Table 16: Bases and affixes...... 165 Table 17: Blend types...... 168 Table 18: Semantic classification of blends ...... 170 Table 19: Abbreviations ...... 171 Table 20: Types of clipping ...... 172 Table 21: Conversion types ...... 173 Table 22: Eponyms ...... 174

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1 Introduction The expansion of the British colonial power has often been considered as the turning point in the domination of the English language in world affairs. However, it was the first settlements in North America in the early 17th century that were the deciding events for the future influence and power of English in the 20th and 21st century. Word War I and World War II saw the rise of the USA as the political and military power of the 20th century. As Crystal (2004: 10) correctly states, it is the economic power of the USA that sustains their influence on the rest of the world and the language associated with American corporations is English. While political, military and economic power allows the USA to be the dominant player in the geopolitical world, it is their cultural influence that is changing the world into a homogeneous entity. The international music industry is a prime example of this homogeneousness. Many European musicians, e.g. the German singer Lou Bega and the extremely popular German band of the 1980s Modern Talking as well as the French pop newcomers Pony Pony Run Run forgo the use of their mother tongue in their songs and instead use English as their medium.

American blockbuster movies top the box office in earnings. As of this writing, only four out of thirty-weeks were topped by British films at the box office in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta in 2015. The other twenty-eight weeks belonged to American films (United Kingdom, 2015). Cultural and economic imperialism may in some respect be viewed as a symbiotic relationship. This view is only reinforced by the fact that in some years American films have taken as much as 80 percent of the revenue in European countries (Campbell, Martin and Fabos 2012: 411).

New York’s Ellis Island was one of the most important points at which immigrants from around the world entered the USA. They came in large numbers, the poor and the tired with no material possessions, but they brought with them something more valuable: their customs, their cultures and their own languages which in turn diversified American culture and language, making it richer and more colourful. Many of them settled across the country in search of new opportunities and better lives. They were no longer, Polish, Irish, German and

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Spanish; they were Americans. American culture became a melting pot of northern, southern, western and eastern American culture. These attributes combined into one culture, which is homogeneous on a global scale, known as American culture, but heterogeneous on a national level. This thesis looks at American culture, specifically popular culture, from a national, heterogeneous perspective, attempting to describe the defining moments in American popular culture and particularly its influence on the American English vocabulary as well as English worldwide.

1.1 Hypotheses As the primary focus of this thesis is the description of modern American popular culture and its influence on the English vocabulary, there are several hypotheses that need to be tested and, consequently, either confirmed or rejected.

The first hypothesis states that series on American television provide the greatest number of new coinages and words with new meanings.

The second hypothesis states that of all the word-formation processes, compounding is the most productive. Additionally, nominal compounds as parts of this word-formation process should represent the majority of all the compounds.

The last hypothesis addresses word class. If compounding is the dominant word- formation process and nominal compounds the most common result, then nouns must represent the majority of newly created words including new words created as a result of derivation, blending, clipping and other word-formation processes.

1.2 Organization of the M.A. thesis This M.A. thesis is divided into a theoretical and an empirical section. The theoretical part of the M.A. thesis itself is further split into two sections. The first section describes American popular culture, its meaning and definition, as well as the historical and global impact that it has had on the American and global, mostly English speaking, population. It depicts American popular culture through the historical aspects of TV series, films, music, politics/media and technology, and

2 intertwines these aspects into one global unity, American culture. While a retrospective view is applied to the description of the mass media, this is only done to better understand modern American popular culture and its domains. A more comprehensive description of popular TV shows, films, music genres and artists, technological innovations and media functions is presented.

The second section of the theoretical description deals with the creation of words. Word-formation processes are listed and described in detail. Linguistic terms such as word, lexeme, morpheme, affixes and semantic shift are defined and systematically explained. One of the most important aspects of lexicology is the acquisition of new words and meanings. Words can easily be created, but if there are no speakers that use them, they tend to die out. In the section on the acquisition of words, several methods of vocabulary acquisition are described. Although there is a lot of research on foreign language vocabulary acquisition, research on first language vocabulary acquisition is scarce.

The empirical part of this thesis presents a number of newly created words and meanings which have appeared since 1990. A list of words, their semantic meanings and examples of their use in authentic sources, such as newspapers, magazines, blogs and various social networking sites, is provided. These words along with their explanation and examples of use are categorized in subsections of Films and TV series, music, social media, politics, fashion and miscellaneous. Because American popular culture is very much heterogeneous and TV shows, films, music, media and technology often overlap, some words may be included into more than one category. When such examples occur, e.g. webisode, a blend of web and episode, a special mention is made. New technologies, mostly Internet-based, have made things in some situations complicated. TV shows and films, articles, music and websites were used as a source for finding new words and new meanings originating or being popularized by a specific art form of American popular culture.

Corpus analysis (Corpus of Contemporary American English) is one of the primary methods of my analysis in the empirical part. Printed and online editions of popular American and British newspapers (The Times, The

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Huffington Post and the Daily Mail), dictionaries of Standard English and non- Standard English (Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam-Webster Dictionary as well as Urban Dictionary and The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English), and Internet message boards and social networks are reviewed and inspected to identify which words exist outside their original source. The linguistic data gathered is analysed with regard to word class and word-formation processes. A detailed examination of word-formation processes is provided for a better understanding of the processes used in the creation of new words in American popular culture.

The thesis concludes with a glossary of the presented and analysed lexical items. A basic definition along with the word class for each lexical item is provided.

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2 Research methods First, a descriptive method is used to explain modern American popular culture. It focuses on those major art forms, artists and events that have shaped American society and in some way contributed to the American way of life and to the English language. Various definitions of American popular culture are provided to fully grasp the diversity that is American life and culture. Campbell, Martin and Fabos’ (2012) extensive work on American popular culture in the digital age contributes significantly in defining the role of the US in the digital age and beyond.

American popular culture as a heterogeneous entity of different influences from across the US is explained through the examples taken from the entertainment industry. Additionally, the role of the digital age in creating and disseminating new language forms across the US and around the globe is examined. The role of different aspects of American society is examined to identify which aspects are relevant to popular culture, e.g. the role of politics in modern American popular culture. Questions are raised as to whether politics, journalism and technology can be considered popular culture and if so, in what capacity.

Second, literature on the topics of creation and acquisition of new words is studied in order to provide a detailed picture of how new words come about, their characteristics and the conditions necessary for new words to be acquired by language users. The linguistic works of Ingo Plag (2003), Laurie Bauer (1993), Rodney Huddleston and Laurie Bauer (2002), Robert Stockwell and Donka Minkova (2005), Howard Jackson and Etienne Zé Amvela (2004), and Norbert Schmitt (2008) provide the foundation for the theoretical analysis of word- formation and word acquisition.

The empirical part of this thesis focuses on the presentation of newly created or popularized words in American popular culture in the last 25 years. American films, TV series, songs, newspapers, social media and other sources were inspected to find new coinages. The Internet is a great source of information, especially the search engine Google, which lists search results according to their relevance and frequency. However, the search results provided by Google must be

5 viewed with caution, as marketing plays an important role in Google’s business strategy. The lexical data presented and analysed in this thesis includes 141 randomly selected orthographic words and phrases. There are many more examples from modern American popular culture, but their inclusion into this thesis would have made the presentation and the analysis unmanageable due to its size. No words were preferred due to their word class, word-formation process or their etymology, but were selected purely because of their high frequency in popular films, TV series and social media. There is a relatively high number of examples from the television series Seinfeld. This may be attributed to the fact that Seinfeld is one of the most successful television series in American history. It is still shown on American TV channels in reruns and has created many popular words and phrases that have gained popularity with their fan base.

The presentation of newly created and popularized words is based on synchronic and diachronic analysis. Words are divided into specific categories, e.g. the term spongeworthy is listed in the section 5.1. Films and TV series, while the term viral is listed in the section 5.3. Social media. However, due to some borderline cases between different areas, mostly between television and technology, those cases are listed according to their function, e.g. a webisode may be a technological term, but is prominently used in the entertainment industry to promote a television series. The words are analysed according to: etymology, word class and semantic meaning, and word-formation process. In addition, examples in authentic sources as well as possible derivatives are presented. Yet, there are examples whose etymology is difficult to specify and whose word-formation process is not clearly deducible due to their uncertain etymology. In such cases possible solutions are speculated about.

Corpora and dictionaries were consulted to find the earliest examples of words, their meaning and word-formation process. Corpus of Contemporary American English (n.d.), Corpus of Historical American English (n.d.) and British National Corpus (n.d.) are used extensively to search for examples of presented words. Additionally, Oxford Dictionaries (n.d.), Merriam-Webster (n.d.), Collins English Dictionary (n.d.), Macmillan Dictionary (n.d.), The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (Barrett, 2006b), The American Heritage Dictionary of the

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English Language (n.d.) and Urban Dictionary (n.d.) were consulted to find and define the words as best as possible.

Finally, the analysis of presented words focuses on three main aspects, i.e. etymology, syntax and morphology, specifically word-formation. The analysis of word origins focuses on different cultural art forms, i.e. how many of the newly created and popularized words belong to specific areas, e.g. television, music or technology, in order to find out which social and cultural art form dominates in word production. Additionally, the goal of the syntactic analysis is to determine the word class of newly created words. In combination with word-formation analysis, it will be shown which word class is predominant in derivatives. The analysis concludes with a detailed examination of word-formation processes that are used in forming the presented words. Specific aspects of each word-formation process are looked at and compared to the lexical data.

Since modern American popular culture is very diverse, various research methods have been used in order to examine the link between culture and language. Therefore, a descriptive approach is used in explaining concepts such as popular culture, word-formation, language acquisition, etc. The lexical data gathered covers a time span of 25 years (from 1990 to 2015), which in itself is a short period of time. However, as some examples are semantically linked to forms that have been in use for centuries, a synchronic as well as a diachronic approach is required.

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3 Modern American Popular Culture American popular culture is a complex entity encompassing different aspects of social, economic, political, religious and cultural life. It is often thought of as part of commercialism, where the consumption of low-cost products and the maximization of profit are desired. Topics such as commercialism, consumption, television, music, technology, fashion and sex are discussed to better understand the complexity that is popular culture.

Technological advancements and new social media trends have led to the creation of new forms of entertainment such as online video streaming services (e.g. Netflix) and new stars such as and . Being famous for the sake of being famous has become a new trend. Most of these so-called stars have become mainstream news in tabloid newspapers and TV channels such as the National Enquirer and TMZ (Thirty Mile Zone) because of their sex tapes being leaked on the Internet. “Sex sells” has been a successful business model for many tabloid magazines in the last few decades. Yet, stars who appear in such magazines to promote themselves and the magazines which make money promoting such stars are not looked dimly upon by many.

Throughout its existence, American popular culture has not enjoyed much respect and admiration from the so-called higher social groups. It has regularly been seen as a low form of culture. Strinati (2004: 19) writes that “American popular culture is seen to embody all that is wrong with mass culture.” Representatives of popular culture and moralists have been at odds since at least the 1830s. The advent of Hollywood movies and the gangster film genre only intensified the rift (Springhall, 1998: 160). Other forms of popular culture, e.g. rock and roll music, comic books, risqué television shows, erotic music videos and new technological inventions of the 21st century have only intensified the belief of the moralists that popular culture is corrupting the youth of America. Springhall (1998: 1, 109) writes that popular culture is sometimes unjustly blamed for criminal activities perpetrated in society, e.g. the singer Marilyn Manson and the film series Child’s Play (1988-2013) have often been targeted by traditionalists. He (1998: 160-161) states that new forms of entertainment and new technological inventions are

8 feared by the older generations who have difficulties comprehending the new and foreign.

It is the new and foreign that makes popular culture fascinating and, to some, incomprehensible. Campbell and Kean (2004: 20) describe America as “a place where different identities mix and collide, an assemblage, a multiplicity, constantly producing and reproducing new selves and transforming old ones, […].” The creation of new ideas and identities as well as the recycling of old ones is the basis of American popular culture. Campbell and Kean (2004: 20) refer to America as a complex and multifaceted text or film which entails many different characters and events.

American society is not much different from many other societies across the globe. There are different social groups within a society, each with its own beliefs, moral values, aspirations, social position and many with different social dialects. Trudgill (2000: 23) writes about social-class dialects, some other authors about sociolects. People who participate in and create popular culture belong to diverse social groups, which in turn makes popular culture diverse in content, production, presentation and language. Social stratification as a hierarchical ordering of groups depending on their power, wealth and status plays an important role in American culture (Trudgill, 2000: 25). We would expect the social groups with economic and/or social power to exert the greatest influence on the creation of popular culture, but with the rise of the Internet this has changed. New technologies, e.g. smartphones and tablets, and innovative ways of content creation have enabled almost anyone with an Internet connection and a smartphone or digital camera to create, produce and publish their own works of art. This has curbed the monopoly that the ruling classes had on culture and the creation thereof. It has led to the phenomenon in which technological advancements shape popular culture.

Yet, the majority of popular content is still produced in large cities. and New York are the main two American metropolises where writers, musicians, actors and journalists find inspiration, and where large film studios, music labels

9 and major newspapers are based. Both cities have a population that is racially and culturally extremely diverse, which makes them unique.

Historically, the American film industry has been exceedingly profitable. By 1918, it had already overtaken the British market. Olster (2003: 94) writes that more than 80 percent of films shown in British theatres were Hollywood produced, a number which still corresponds to today’s film market. This has resulted in cultural imperialism. However, as early as 1945, there were concerns in Great Britain that American culture, and the film and music industry, would promote consumerism among the working-class (Campbell and Kean, 2004: 266). Some other European countries have acted amid concerns of the loss of distinctiveness of their national language and identity, and have imposed legislation to protect their mother tongue. In 1993, the French Senate passed a bill to force radio stations to play at least 40 percent French music, while the Spanish parliament put in place a law that restricts the dubbing and projection of American movies (Cohen, 1993). The Internet age has made such legislation difficult to impose, as people have other options for consuming films and music in addition to radio, television or cinemas.

The maximization of profit may not only be seen on Wall Street, but also in American mass media industries. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 15) write that mass media industries earn more than 200 billion dollars annually. A large amount of money is spent studying people’s behaviour, to understand their listening and watching preferences as well as their shopping habits. The creation of quality content has to some extent been replaced by the search for profit, e.g. product placement has become a common occurrence in TV series, films, music videos, talk shows and online newspapers. Every night on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014- ) viewers at home and audiences in the studio can see an Apple notebook on the host’s desk, while the host plays a game with his guest using an Apple iPad. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 241) cite the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) as one of the most pronounced examples of product placement. Corporate sponsors and their money frequently win over individual creativity and vision.

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Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 391) state that the maximization of profit has caused an oligopoly in American mass media industries, which means that just a few companies dominate the industry. In the USA, publishing, feature-film and music industries are all oligopolies. They hold their position by acquiring independent companies, thus eliminating the threat they might pose while obtaining the acquired companies’ ideas. Yet, there are new Internet-based companies such as the music and video streaming companies Netflix and Spotify that are changing the landscape of music and video creation, production and distribution and could threaten the big companies if they do not adapt to new digital media technologies.

Entertainment industries are producing new contents at a far greater pace than ever before. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 15) describe the situation as overwhelming for many people because of the amount of information available. Popular media culture is frowned upon, while commercialism and sensationalism are replacing educational and moral values. A study conducted by the A. Kaiser Family Foundation in 2010 (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 15) showed that children watch TV and use computers and mobile devices for their media consumption predominantly. They are mostly left alone to process the images seen on these platforms. When parents cannot manage the moral upbringing of their children, federal and private institutions step in. In the USA, the MPAA (Motion Picture of Association of America), the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission) and the ESRB (the Entertainment Software Rating Board) help parents by assigning ratings to films and video games according to their suitability for specific members of society, while the FCC monitors radio, television, satellite and cable communication for inappropriate actions and language use.

Allen Ginsberg’s (Allen Ginsberg Quotes, n.d.) quote, “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” appears almost prophetic, as media lobbyists, political figures and many other interest groups put pressure on those who create media content, adhering to their worldview. Strinati (2004: 250-251), in agreement with Ginsberg, writes that mass media ownership is important for

11 the ruling class because it enables them to control mass media and popular culture, which in turn influences society as a whole.

Sex is a topic that has always been under scrutiny by the organisations which try to preserve traditional moral values. Yet, it plays an important role in American popular culture. Fascination with sex has been a theme in American popular culture since the early 20th century and the Golden Age of Hollywood. The actresses Vivian Leigh, Greta Garbo, Lauren Bacall and Doris Day were revered by women and desired by men. In 1953, Hugh Heffner challenged conventional values by launching Playboy magazine. The first woman to appear on the cover was Marilyn Monroe (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 273). Since then, many publications covering the topic of sex, fashion and style for men and for women have been published, e.g. Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan. One of the biggest pop musicians is (birth name Madonna Louise Ciccone). The of Pop, as is she known, has been pushing the boundaries of sex, feminism and occasionally religion since here arrival on the music scene. Her popular songs Like a Virgin, Like a Prayer and Justify my Love, her coffee-table book Sex and her role in the film Body of Evidence (1993), although popular with her fans, have received much criticism from some interest groups, e.g. the head of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, even banned her from performing in Italy (Jacobs, 2013). While Madonna has been more subdued in the last few years, other singers, such as Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj, have taken over her role in pushing the limits of sexuality and the taboo.

Hollywood has explored themes of sex and promiscuity in many of its films, e.g. 9 ½ Weeks (1986), The Piano (1993) and Showgirls (1995). Hollywood is also a place where dreams come true, but more importantly, it shows that in America everyone can achieve their dreams and goals. In Pretty Woman (1990), a street prostitute played by Julia Roberts meets a wealthy businessman played by Richard Gere by chance. During a week spent together, their professional relationship develops into a romantic one. It is a classic rags-to-riches story that is often told in Hollywood films and that is synonymous with the American dream.

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While many see popular culture as a moral decay, a tool for consumption of repetitive and simplistic ideas, funded by the ruling class to dissuade people from questioning the goals of capital and the government, there are also those American popular culture as something beautiful, diverse, to be cherished and preserved. Paglia (1992: 19) calls popular film and music the two great art forms of the 20th century. Campbell and Kean (2004: 26) write that “Individual courage, persistence and determination focused on idealism and 'dream' have become a strong, resilient strand in expressions of ‘Americanness’.”

3.1 Defining popular culture This section deals with the question of defining American popular culture. American popular culture is described in relation to American culture in general and in light of consumerism, consumption and language

Popular culture may be viewed from different perspectives, e.g. as art forms, consumer culture or as opposition to high culture. Hebdige (1988, as cited in Strinati, 2004: XIV) defines popular culture as a set of artefacts. The artefacts are films, records, clothes, TV programmes and the like. Strinati (2004: XIV) writes that “popular culture can be found in different societies, within different groups in societies, and among societies and groups in different historical periods.” The term popular culture is thus a hypernym. Popular culture may be subdivided into different kinds of popular culture, e.g. American, British, Australian, German, etc. American popular culture, for example, can be further subdivided into southern, northern, western and eastern. While these are regional divisions, social ones can be obverseved as well. There are different forms of popular culture between white American society and African-American society, while many feminists might argue that there is a divide between male and female popular culture.

Just as the term popular culture may be understood differently, so may the theories describing it. The Frankfurt School sees popular culture as “the culture produced by the culture industry to secure the stability and continuity of capitalism” (Strinati, 2004: XIV). Feminist theory explains it as “a form of patriarchal ideology which works in the interests of men and against the interests

13 of women.”, while semiology emphasises “the role of popular culture in obscuring the interests of the powerful […]” (Strinati, 2004: XV). There are some structuralist theories that define popular culture as “an expression of universal and unchanging social and mental structures” and according to post-modernist theory, popular culture manifests “radical changes in the role of the mass media which wear away the distinction between image and reality” (Strinati, 2004: XV).

Many authors analyse popular culture as a product of consumerism, having only been created to sell goods. Lanoue (n.d.: 2) writes that popular culture needs to be consumed, it needs to be created for the middle class. Ad agencies and their use of surveys and focus groups play an important role in helping create content that is suited to specific population groups. They gather information and study demographic factors. According to Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 462) these include educational background, income level, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation and political affiliations. Such information is essential in determining the course of action in creating and producing TV programmes, songs, advertisements and other forms of popular culture. In broadcasting, TV executives look to attract the demographic that has the highest disposable income, e.g. soap opera producers might look to attract middle-class women between the ages of 18- 54, while professional wrestling shows appeal mostly to teenagers, their families and middle-aged men with money to spend.

Strinati (2004: 10) writes that “popular culture is produced by industrial techniques of mass production, and marketed for profit to a mass market of consumers.” He continues that “if culture can’t make money then it is unlikely to be produced.” There is evidence of his claims in American popular culture. Many popular songs are made with the help of audio enhancing technology called auto- tune, i.e. a technology that masks any deficiencies in singers’ voices and corrects them. Television and radio networks produce pilots, i.e. episodes of a series to test audience reaction. If the audience response is unfavourable, is unlikely to be made into a series, thus eliminating any chance of monetary loss.

Popular culture throughout the twentieth century has been seen as a form of low culture. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 18) compare culture to a skyscraper

14 with top floors representing high culture, e.g. ballet, opera and museums, while the bottom floors signify low culture or popular culture, e.g. soap operas, reality TV and video games.

Stacey Olster (2003) and Campbell and Kean (2004) compare popular culture to trash. Olster (2003: 182-183) refers to popular culture as cash for trash, which is best exemplified by the numerous books and documentaries about the O. J. Simpson murder trial in 1995, which were released even before the final verdict was delivered. Dominick Dunne (1995) writes about the case in an article describing the proceedings surrounding it as “a mammoth fireworks display of interracial marriage, love, lust, lies, hate, fame, wealth, beauty, obsession, spousal abuse, stalking, brokenhearted children, the bloodiest of bloody knife-slashing homicides, and all the justice money can buy.” Dunne powerfully describes the occasion that is remembered as one of the most memorable events in American folklore. The murder trail made televised car chases popular, it turned Johnnie Cochran, one of the leading defence attorneys for O.J. Simpson, into a popular figure and it spawned the phrase if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit, which is a reference to a glove which was found at the crime scene and supposedly belonged to O.J. Simpson. The glove was used as evidence at the trial, where O.J. Simpson tried the glove on, but it did not fit.

Trash culture is best represented by trash TV, symbolized by shows such as the Jerry Springer Show (1991- ), and TV channels such as TMZ that film every moment of celebrities’ lives, waiting to capture the one-million-dollar moment.

While popular culture may be described as trash and low culture, a means to sell consumer products and maximize corporate revenue, it also tries to reinvent itself, and to reuse old themes and ideas in an imaginative manner. The digital age has ensured that everyone can bring their own ideas and products to the masses. Although the corporate hold over popular culture might be less firm due to the advent of new technologies, it is still the primary force behind the creation of popular forms of entertainment.

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3.2 The role of media in modern American popular culture Media, i.e. newspapers, magazines, news channels and online news blogs and journals, play an important role in the dissemination of information, political views, cultural trends and new language use. Media in this section refers to journalism and press. It is one of the cornerstones of any nation. In the USA, media is protected by the first amendment of the US constitution (U.S. Constitution, n.d.). Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 419) describe journalism as the only necessary enterprise that is absolutely required by a democracy. Media has always been under threat by political, corporate and other influential groups. It was only in the 19th century that independent journalism developed in the USA. (Crystal, 2004: 91)

I list and describe those forms of media that have contributed greatly to American popular culture. Political figures who have provided newsworthy moments and statements are enumerated, e.g. former US president, George W. Bush, was often ridiculed by journalists, TV pundits and online weblogs for his Texas-like showmanship and his atypical use of words and phrases, known as Bushisms. Some of the best known Bushisms are: They misunderestimated me., Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? and You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. (Weisberg, 2009).

Although, newspapers, magazines and other print forms of the media have been under extreme pressure from new forms of journalism such as Internet-only editions of newspapers and magazines (e.g. Slate, Politico and The Huffington Post), older forms of journalism continue to play an important role in contemporary culture. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 221) write that “by reporting on scientific, technological, and medical issues, newspapers disseminate specialized knowledge to the public. In reviews of films, concerts, and plays, they shape cultural trends.” The media does not only play an important role in the USA but also abroad. It presents and conveys the American way and its achievements. Live coverage of the Moon landing, Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on late night television and live coverage of Super Bowl Sunday have been seen across the globe. Political figures such as former president Bill Clinton wisely use their time in the media to promote their causes and take advantage of their exposure.

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Recently, younger generations have strayed away from reputable newspapers and news channels. They have gravitated towards other media in the form of news blogs, YouTube shows and satirical news shows, e.g. The Colbert Report (2005- 2014) and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1996-2015). A report by the Pew Research Center (Anderson and Gottfried, 2014) states that in 2014 twenty-two percent of males between the ages of 18-29 got news from The Colbert Report on a weekly basis. However, this only applies to males with primarily liberal views. The Colbert Report relies on the satirical impersonation of TV pundits, i.e. television hosts and experts that give opinions on particular subjects. Such shows often influence politics and other important issues in the USA. According to James H. Fowler (2008), appearing on The Colbert Report and receiving the Colbert bump, his seal of approval, greatly benefits the politician, resulting in a surge of popularity or donations.

The media can often change the perception of reality. All-day news channels such as CNN (Cable News Network) have changed the way that the news is presented. Live reports from the scene have allowed viewers to instantly receive information. For instance, many news channel and newspaper reporters are embedded with soldiers, thus the war is not only fought on the battleground but live on TV as well. Journalists often report from locations which have been struck by tornadoes and hurricanes, and viewers can watch live broadcasts of police chases from the comfort of their living rooms.

New technologies have permitted viewers to participate in reporting news. CNN iReport and Global Voices Online are two websites where citizens can share their stories and upload their videos and photos. This new trend is called citizen journalism. Additionally, people write personal blogs, create YouTube videos and write opinion-based tweets that contain personal opinions regarding political, social, economic and educational topics. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 244- 245) write that newspapers and other news companies are struggling in the move to the digital age. This adaption resulted in the decline of their readership by more than 25 percent in the first decade of the 2000s.

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While newspapers and other news channels tend to appeal to niche markets and use a subscription-based business model, the digital age has created new ways of gathering information free of charge. Apps such as Flipboard are tailored to individuals’ needs by collecting and presenting only those articles in which users are interested. Personalization and customization has become a significant factor in the digital age. What is more, the feeling of entitlement that everything should be available free of charge has forced news companies to rethink their business models, e.g. The New York Times has a subscription plan that provides online access on all digital devices, access to full New York Times Archives from 1851 onwards and a print edition for less than ten dollars a week. Perhaps the key factor in retaining the old and bringing in younger readership is the inclusion of social media in many online articles. Readers can e-mail, share, tweet and pin their favourite articles.

Many newspapers offer cartoons and comics in their print and online editions. Comics have been a popular art form of American culture since the 1940s and 1950s (Springhall, 1998: 121). A survey conducted in 1950 showed that 42 percent of males read comic books (Springall, 1998: 129), while a Facebook group of self-identified comic book fans had more than 24 million members in the USA in February 2014, almost 47 percent of them women (Schenker, 2014). Comic books have surged in popularity in the last ten years due to highly successful film adaptions of Marvel and DC Universes.

A large part of media revenue comes from selling space and airtime to advertisements and commercials. Newspaper, journal and news broadcasting companies generate much of their income from advertisements, which can leave them vulnerable to outside pressure to present news in a way that is favourable to their owners. According to McFedries (2004: 119), marketing and advertising have become the dominant forms of cultural expression in the USA. Ad agencies find creative ways to sell their products, thus also creating new words and phrases to attract consumers to purchase their products. McFedries (2004: 119) calls these words and phrases linguistic JPMs, jolts per minute or the number of times an ad makes an impression on people. The importance of advertising is seen on Super Bowl Sunday, when many people watch the game just for the commercials. In

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2015, NBC (National Broadcasting Company), which broadcast the game, demanded around 4.5 million dollars for a 30 second spot (Lutz and O’Reilly, 2015), signifying the importance for many companies to be seen by millions around the world.

The direction of American media will largely depend on the evolution of the Internet and other digital devices. If major newspaper and broadcasting companies can adapt to new technological innovations and follow social media trends, there survival might not be at risk. Otherwise, Internet-only news sites, blogs, YouTube channels and other social media that focus on niche markets might jeopardize the prominent role of old media formats in modern America.

3.3 Films and TV series The end of World War II brought about many advancements in the lives of Americans. For one thing, the rise of middle-class citizens as a result of rapid economic growth has enabled people to spend more on goods, such as new cars, houses, jewellery and most importantly, television sets. The big network broadcasting companies, NBC (National Broadcasting Company), ABC (American Broadcasting Company) and CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), produced original programming that could for the first time be seen from people’s living rooms. Crystal (2004: 96-97) writes that around ten million television sets were in use in 1951, while the number rose to about 200 million in 1990. McFedries (2004: 203-204) provides an even higher estimate. He claims that about 98 percent of households have at least one television set, while a surprisingly high number of about two million households do not own a television set. Some of the likely reasons are low household income and personal preferences.

Wim Wenders (Robinson, 1995, as quoted in Crystal, 2004: 100) states that “‘people increasingly believe in what they see and they buy what they believe in […] People use, drive, wear, eat and buy what they see in the movies.’” If people buy, wear and eat what they hear and see in American films and series, then they most likely use the language they hear. Films and television series used to be

19 more productive in spreading new words as they could be seen by more people than newspapers were read. However, the Internet has forced newspapers to post their articles online for everyone to read, thus complicating the question of what medium is more effective in conveying language to the masses. While reputable newspapers such as The New York Times and mostly adhere to Standard English rules and vocabulary when posting articles online, user- created articles may not always comply with them.

3.3.1 American films The American film industry is the leading film industry in the world. According to Crystal (2004: 100), about 85 percent of the global film market belonged to the American film industry in the mid-1990s, with Hollywood films dominating box offices across the globe. While authors such as Paglia (1992: 19) view films as the great art form of 20th century American culture, there are others, e.g. Anthony Kaufmann (2004, as cited in Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 197) who see American films as simplistic. In his assessment, many American films consist exclusively of scenes with explosions, shootings and sex. He states that “‘it appeals to just the more base emotions of people anywhere’” (Kaufmann, 2004, as cited in Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 197). There are many films of this genre that have been made throughout American history, some of the most famous ones starring the action film stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The American fascination with violence and war is also depicted in films and some of the greatest films made in American film history have taken war as a theme. Films such as Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986) and The Deer Hunter (1978) have all made the list composed by the American Film Institute (AFI’s 100 Years…, 2007) as one of the greatest American films. Although many American films depict war as a harsh, fearful and inhumane ordeal, there are also films that have presented the American military favourably, even promoting it. A prime example is the action drama Top Gun (1986) starring Tom Cruise. The film glorifies and romanticizes the American Navy. The film popularized the phrase I

20 feel the need for speed spoken by the character played by Tom Cruise. The phrase has been used as the title of enormously popular video game franchise Need for Speed. Hollywood and the American military have long had a relationship in promoting military and political ideas, more recently witnessed in the highly successful American Sniper (2014) directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper as the film’s protagonist.

Throughout the course of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st, different trends in the film industry can be observed. Ji and Waterman (2011) have conducted an empirical study of film genres and their relevance in different time periods. Their analysis is based on the film database www.imdb.com (Internet Movie Database). They analysed the twenty most frequent film genres and compared the list to box office lists from the period 1967-2008 (Ji and Waterman, 2011: 22). Genres such as animation, fantasy, sci-fi and action have seen a steady rise in production and box office success in the forty-year span, which is not surprising given the technological advancements in film-making. In the late 1960s, the most popular genre was drama. Since then dramas and westerns have lost their appeal in the film market. On the other hand, comedies have remained popular with film studios and audiences alike throughout the course of the 20th century and the start of the 21st.

Technological advancements in film-making have brought about many changes. Computer technology CGI (Computer-generated imagery) has made narratives which were previously thought off as impossible possible. Special effects are now part of almost every action, adventure, sci-fi and fantasy film. Many films are now filmed in 3D technology, with the enormously successful Avatar paving the way for future filmmakers.

Technological advancements in the field of digital and video devices have made independent film-making easier than previously thought. Many aspiring film makers have been able to fulfil their artistic ambitions with only a fraction of large film studios spend on their projects. The best example of independent film-making in the last twenty years is the film The Blair Witch Project (1999). According to the IMDB database, an estimated budget of 60.000

21 dollars was enough to make the film, which in turn earned the producers around 140 million dollars at the box office. Independent films have not only been successful at the box office, but have also received critical acclaim by various associations. Recently, the film Whiplash (2014) received five Oscar nominations, winning three (IMDB, n.d.). The film also won the audience and grand jury awards at the Sundance Film Festival (Sundance…, 2015), the biggest and the most important film festival for independent film-making in the USA. Some independent films, e.g. Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Terminator (1984) and Clerks (1994), rank among the elite of American films. What is more, a few independent directors and writers, such as Quentin Tarantino, almost transcend their films, becoming the attraction themselves. Tarantino films always contain a dialogue with pop culture references, usually followed by scenes of violence.

American films are sometimes seen as a cheap form of entertainment, having to rely on special effects, scenes of nudity, and juvenile and slapstick humour, both by some Americans and by non-Americans. However, it cannot be disputed that the majority of world box office hits are produced by American film studios. Nevertheless, there are American films that stand the test of time and can be called masterpieces. The American Film Institute (AFI) composed a list of 100 greatest American films in 2007 (AFI’s 100 Years…, 2007). The list includes classics such as Citizen Kane (1941), The Godfather (1972), Raging Bull (1980) and Schindler’s List (1993).

Films serve a very important function that is sometimes forgotten and not recognized enough. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 187) write that films bring people together and distract them from their daily lives. The following quote describes the importance of films:

They evoke and symbolize universal themes of human experience (the experience of childhood, coming of age, family relations, growing older, and coping with death); they can help us understand and respond to major historical events and tragedies (for instance, the Holocaust and 9/11); and they encourage us to rethink contemporary ideas as the world evolves, particularly in terms of how we think

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about race, class, spirituality, gender, and sexuality. (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 187)

3.3.2 American TV series American television and their repeated use of low forms of entertainment are a frequent target of criticism. However, Lanoue (n.d.: 5) claims that television does not have much influence on popular culture and that the influence on culture is overestimated. If that is the case, then any fear of the ruling classes and moralists that television and films corrupt the youth and entice middle classes to fight against power is misjudged. Yet, American television is important in influencing the English language as will be presented in the following sections. Moreover, language and society form a complex inter-relationship. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that language conditions human beings’ view of the world (Trudgill, 2000: 15). If television series can influence and change language and if language can change people’s perception of their environment, the ruling classes’ fear of the low and middle-class population is understandable. Nevertheless, not all forms of entertainment are equally influential. If they were, everyone would be using the same vocabulary, buying the same products and wearing the same clothes as seen on television.

This section presents some of the television series and television channels that have had a considerable influence on the American language and culture. It also looks at how the American television genre, , has developed.

After World War II and the start of the home television era, network broadcasting companies started producing the first series marketed at middle-class audiences. Lanoue (n.d.: 1) writes that networks produced high forms of entertainment, e.g. dramas, ballet and classical music. However, due to low ratings the focus was shifted to light forms of entertainment such as comedies and variety shows.

Variety programmes or late-night talk show have been a staple of American television since the late 1940s. One of the pioneers of variety shows was The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-1971). However, the genre was popularized by Johnny Carson and his show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that ran for

23 almost thirty years, from 1961 until 1991 (Yahr, 2014). There have been many changes in the format of late-night talk shows, many of them embracing the digital age, i.e. incorporating social media and digital devices into their shows, to attract younger audiences. Many late-night talk shows use similar formats, i.e. a humorous monologue covering daily news, which is followed by sketches and celebrity guests and concluded by a musical performance by a guest artist/group or a stand-up routine by an aspiring comedian. Comedy Central’s late-night talk shows broke the mould of late night television. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report were late-night shows pretending to be news programmes, thus blurring the lines between entertainment and news. Nevertheless, some aspects of the late-night talk show format were still used, specifically humour, interviewing celebrities and occasional sketches and musical guests. The two shows were often referred to as “fake” news and satirical journalism (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 443).

Comedy programming has always had a leading role in television broadcasting. In 1951, the pioneering comedy series I Love Lucy (1951-1957) paved the way for future comedy series (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 156). Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 157-158) name three different formats of comedy programming, i.e. sketch comedy, situation comedy or and domestic comedy. The format of sketch comedy is best represented by NBC’s Saturday Night Live (1975- ), situation comedy by Seinfeld (1989-1998), Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971) and The Cosby Show (1984-1992), and domestic comedy by Happy Days (1974-1984) and (1999- ). There is a distinction between a situation comedy, a domestic comedy and a sketch comedy. Situation comedies or sitcoms establish a narrative, complicate it, increasing confusion develops among its characters and in the end complications are usually resolved. In contrast, domestic comedies rely on characters and settings rather than on complicated predicaments, although ridiculous situations might appear as a subplot. In the end, character development is more important that re-establishing order as a result of confusion. Sketch comedy comprises of short comedy skits which are normally performed by actors, comedians, dancers and singers (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 157- 158).

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American sitcoms have changed since the 1950s. In the beginning, family values and household topics were the norm; the narrative involved a conflict and a resolution. In the 1990s, Seinfeld brought about a change. Sitcoms from the era before Seinfeld included a resolution where the main characters learnt valuable moral lessons, while the main characters in Seinfeld usually did not learn any moral lessons or feel any remorse for their socially reprehensible actions (Campbell and Kean, 2004: 275).

Seinfeld, a show about nothing, was an enormous success for NBC and everyone involved, producing high ratings and having grossed more than three billion dollars since the end of the show in 1998 (Coburn, 2014). The characters, Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine, have transcended the series and found a place in American culture. Many phrases and words such as yada yada and No soup for you! have also become part of popular culture phenomenon. Guest appearances by idiosyncratic characters such as Nazi, Babu Bhatt, Jackie Chiles and Lt. Bookman made the series even more recognizable and appealing. The character Jackie Chiles is a parody of Johnnie Cochran, thus obscuring the lines between real world and fiction.

Seinfeld started a new trend in sitcoms where groups of friends replace families as the focal point of narratives. This formula has often been imitated by other comedies such as Friends, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. It is constructed around a group of friends in their mid-20s or mid-30s sitting and talking in their apartment or a café/bar going through their lives. This tried and tested formula has been applied in many comedies.

Another form of comedy series is a dramedy. It is a series that employs elements of both drama and comedy, e.g. series such as Ally McBeal (1997-2002), Desperate Housewives (2004-2012) and Gilmore Girls (2000-2007). Gilmore Girls is one the most critically acclaimed series of the 21st century. It deals with a cross-generational dynamic between a daughter and a mother as well as their estranged mother/grandmother with whom they reconcile after years of resentment. It is set in a fictional town in , full of eccentric and lovable characters. The tagline for the series Life is short. Talk fast best describes

25 the writing style of the series (IMDB, n.d.). A fast-paced dialogue with numerous pop culture references keeps the viewer focused on every spoken word.

In the 1950s and onwards, television families were normal, functional entities who had their problems, but overcame them in the end. However, in 1989 a new kind of series described a dysfunctional way of living in Middle America. The Simpsons debuted in 1989 and became the longest-running television series in 2009 (IMDB, n.d.). The animated series features a buffoonish father, a conventional housewife, a troublemaking son, an intelligent and idealistic daughter, and a baby who often sucks on her pacifier. Although being a dysfunctional family, they are often shown to care about one another. The popularity of the series may also be attributed to a vast array of supporting characters that present middle-class America in a satirical way. The animated series has won numerous awards and even created a popular interjection D’oh!.

Many series shown on television attract large viewing audiences because of their peculiar and idiosyncratic characters. It is perhaps for this reason that many film stars have started to leave the big screen for television. A Time Magazine article (Dockterman, 2013) lists twelve established film stars that have substituted films for series in the last few years. Series such as (2014- ) starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and House of Cards (2013- ) starring Kevin Spacey have become popular with viewers and critics alike.

In the 1980s, it was common to refer to dinners as TV dinners, as they were usually twenty minutes long, a standard half-hour show (Collins, 2000: 56). The term should perhaps be updated to Netflix dinners or YouTube dinners, as many younger people eat dinner while streaming their favourite series on Netflix or watching videos on YouTube. A recent study conducted by Deloitte LLP’s Digital Democracy Survey (Deloitte LLP, 2015) showed that media consumption is changing in the USA. The survey revealed that 56 percent prefer to stream films and 53 percent stream television on a monthly basis, while 45 percent prefer to watch television programmes live. The trend was made possible by Internet-based services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube, which provide films, TV series and music videos for a monthly fee or, in the case of YouTube, free of

26 charge for certain content. Recently, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime have started producing their own original content. Series such as House of Cards, Orange is the New Black (2013- ) and Alpha House (2013- ) have been met with positive critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (n.d.), which is a website that collects online reviews form reputable critics.

The landscape of television production has changed in the USA, as witnessed by numerous premium cable services, e.g. HBO (Home Box Office) and Showtime, as well as basic cable services, such as USA Network, FX and AMC. Series produced by these companies have garnered many awards for their outstanding writing, direction and acting. The series (1999-2007), Mad Men (2007-2015) and Breaking Bad (2008-2013) may not have had as large viewing audiences as some of the series broadcast on the big network companies NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX, but have remained on television and acquired a cult following. Zara (2013) writes that one reason for this is that cable programming can afford low numbers, as they operate to niche-oriented markets, while big networks are often under close inspection by the FCC (The Federal Communication Commission) and their censorship constraints. Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 144) observe that since 2008 cable series have dominated the most important awards in television, the Emmys, winning more than 55 percent of all awards.

One particular basic cable and satellite television channel that helped change and shape American popular culture and is part of American cultural imperialism is MTV. Launched in 1981 (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 162), MTV saw a potential in the younger demographic groups and began airing mostly music videos. The format of MTV programming has undergone many changes throughout the years, showing fewer and fewer music videos and focusing on original programming such as Jersey Shore (2009-2012) and 16 and Pregnant (2009- ). The trend of playing fewer videos inspired pop singer Justin Timberlake to implore MTV to “‘play more damn videos’” (Orloff, 2007). In 1992, MTV began airing the reality series The Real World (1992- ), which is often credited for setting the standard for modern reality television (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 163).

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Reality television series such as Survivor (2000- ), Big Brother (2000- ) and Extreme Makeover (2002-2007) have taken over a large part of the broadcasting schedule. As Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 163) assert, this is not because of popularity and high ratings but because of cost reduction in writing and production staff due to hiring everyday people instead of skilled writers and actors.

3.4 Music Much like television, music comes in different formats. There have been many changes in American popular music from the standpoint of technology and genre development. According to Crystal (2004: 100-101), the greatest technical development has occurred in the USA. The majority of music labels are English speaking, the oldest active label being Columbia which was established in the USA in 1898. However, in 1989, Columbia was bought for four billion dollars by the Japanese conglomerate Sony (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012, p 213). Still, remains an American recording label as a subsidiary of Sony Music (Sony Music, 2015).

American is a diverse entity, encompassing different music styles such as blues, country, rock, jazz, hip hop and dance (Campbell, Martin and Fabos, 2012: 81). Pop music has gone through many transformations in the last century, mixing elements of different periods and styles. It is also one of the few art forms in the English speaking countries that has not always been dominated by American music artists. British groups such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were as successful if not even more than their American counterparts The Monkees and The Beach Boys. The only music artist in the USA that could match the popularity of The Beatles was Elvis Presley.

Rock music of the 1960s and the 1970s was heavily influenced by British rock groups, e.g. Led Zeppelin, The Clash and The Who. Nonetheless, the American rock scene was abundant in extravagant and extremely talented rock musicians, such as Jimmy Hendrix, The Ramones and Lynyrd Skynyrd. In 1969, at the Woodstock Festival, Jimmy Hendrix performed one of the most enduring

28 performances of all time with his rendition of the US national anthem, “The Star- Spangled Banner”. Lanoue (n.d.: 2) sees rock and roll as the music of the people. Rock and roll is the ultimate American music form derived mostly from rhythm and blues. Many rock groups and rock stars have shaped music and culture in the USA. Although rock music lost some of the impact in the latter part of the 1980s and the early 1990s, groups such as Metallica and Guns N’ Roses remain popular.

Pop was the dominant style in the 1980s, with artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna occupying the top ranks of the billboard charts. Pop artists were changing the world by pushing the boundaries of typical middle-American values. Madonna’s role in enforcing gender equality and female empowerment cannot and should not be underestimated. Her songs, books and music videos challenged not only traditional values of family, sex and race, but also of religion. Madonna’s attempts to stay relevant in the music industry have produced some memorable and often shocking moments, e.g. Madonna kissing at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003 (Leight, 2014). The most successful musician of the 1980s and the early 1990s was Michael Jackson, the king of pop. His Thriller (1983) set the standard for future music videos and his Thriller (1982) became the best-selling album of all time (Michael Jackson, 2015).

However, in the mid-1980s, there was a new style of music emerging in the streets of Los Angeles and New York. Hip hop was the music style that dominated music charts for the next decades. Although the origins of hip hop may be found in the 1970s, it was groups such as Public Enemy and N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitude) in the late 1980s that drew attention to poverty, discrimination and violence black American youth were subjected to in the ghettos of American cities. The way hip hop conveys messages differs from other styles of popular music. Much of the lyrics are rapped, i.e. lyrics are spoken in rhythm and rhyme. Chesley (2011: 7) describes the language of hip hop as poetic, emotionally charged, accompanied by melody and a fast tempo. In addition, hip hop lyrics are difficult to understand as the language of hip hop is AAVE (African American Vernacular English). As Ezgeta (2012: 9) writes “Some AAVE’s linguistic segments have been discriminated against, while Black vocabulary has often been the subject of

29 admiration and imitation, especially after the emergence and commercialization of and culture.”

Hip hop and rap were originally a domain of the African-American population, but with the rise of their popularity, the white American population began to identify with it. Šabec (2013: 86) writes that the younger generations of white Americans could relate to the frustration felt by African-Americans and embraced “rap as an expression of counter-culture and refusal to conform to mainstream society.” White rappers soon produced their own rap songs, which topped the Billboard charts, e.g. Vanilla Ice song “Ice Ice Baby” reached number 1 in 1990 (Vanilla Ice, n.d.). Šabec (2013: 86-87) writes that with commercialism and rap’s acceptance as part of American popular culture, it began to spread around the world, including Slovenia. Šabec adds that, although American and Slovene societies are historically, socially and culturally different, the themes in rap songs are similar: marginalisation, discrimination, social injustice and alienation.

Ezgeta (2012: 140) highlights the importance of the hip hop group Public Enemy in establishing rap as “the music with the message”. Suddenly, rap music became popular among white American people, even in academic spheres, where its lyric complexity and meaning was respected. Public Enemy’s most famous song “Fight the Power” inspires black citizens to fight the establishment and is comparable to rock music of the 1960s which was very much anti-establishment. Ross and Rose (1994, as cited in Campbell and Kean, 2004: 92) name rap “‘black America’s TV station […] and black life doesn’t get the total spectrum of information through anything else.’”

The vocabulary of AAVE and especially of hip hop music is in a constant state of flux, constantly being replaced by different words (Ezgeta, 2012: 36). Whenever words used by hip hop artists are picked up by speakers of Standard American English, those words are usually no longer used by AAVE speakers. Chesley (2011: 7) provides the example of bling-bling or bling (expensive clothing and/or jewellery). The term was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003 and into the Merriam Webster Dictionary in 2006. As she notes, the term is no longer in use by hip hop artists. Šabec (2013: 86) states that rappers use street vernacular

30 to “express identification with their communities and intentionally distance themselves from others.” One of the characteristics of rap language is semantic inversion (Smitherman, 1997: 18), e.g. bad actually means good. The meaning of “good” can be expressed with different words such as dope, fly, wicked and stupid. Ezgeta (2012: 37) describes the vocabulary of AAVE best. He writes “Black vocabulary is bold and confrontational. It might include explicit descriptions of sexual acts and obscenity, but at the same time, it is innovative, inventive, vibrant, and creative.”

From the late 1990s up until the early 2010s, hip hop has dominated the Billboard charts. However, singers such as Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Pink and Beyoncé have made pop music relevant again. Still, new pop is wrought with elements of hip hop, dance and R&B (contemporary rhythm and blues).

3.5 Technology At first sight, technology and popular culture might not have much in common. Yet, they are closely connected and are in many areas co-dependent. Film studios, music label and developers of video games take advantage of new technologies and incorporate them into their work. This section deals with technology and popular culture as interrelated forms. Several examples are provided in order to explain the intertwining relationship between the two.

Advancements in technology have always been one of the driving forces behind word creation. From the industrial revolution in the 18th century to great innovation during both World Wars and the rise of the Internet and the digital age in the late 20th and beginning of the 21st century, objects, concepts and situations needed to be named. Moreover, technology has also played an important role in shaping culture, either by spreading ideas or by helping to create them. Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century must be viewed as one of humankind’s most important inventions. It revolutionized the way books are made.

In the late 19th century, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison battled for supremacy in the field of electricity. The discovery of electricity made the invention of radio

31 and television possible. News, radio and television broadcasts swept through the USA in the early and mid-20th century. Information was getting to people at a faster rate than ever before.

The invention of the microprocessor in 1971 by the American company Intel (Mackenzie, 2011) ushered in the modern era as it is known today. The first computers were big, taking up entire rooms. With time, computers have shrunk to the point of being no bigger than the palm of one’s hand. Things which once seemed impossible have now become possible. Film studios are able to apply new technologies to create unimaginable scenes, while special effects and CGI are now a common occurrence in films, music videos and video games. News stations can report on events live as they happen while viewers can comment on them on the Internet. The Internet in its current form was created by the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee (Word Wide Web, 2015), creating a virtual platform for globalization.

In the 1980s, two companies were founded that changed the way we work, communicate and play. Nowadays, the technology giants Microsoft and Apple are at the forefront of the computer revolution, both competing to offer the most intuitive operating system on which the world’s computers can run. Microsoft’s Windows operating system is more successful, currently holding a market share of almost 91 percent against Apple’s Mac OS system of just under five percent (Desktop Operating…, 2015). After winning the operating system war which almost bankrupted Apple, Apple has become one of the most valuable brands in the 2010s (The World’s…, 2015). Apple’s rise to the top was facilitated by several devices aimed at media consumption: the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. They were one of the first companies to recognize the trend in music and video buying habits and launched iTunes, an online service offering millions of songs and thousands of films at reasonable prices. In April 2015, Apple released its latest offering, the Apple Watch, a smartwatch combining a watch and a phone in a single device. Owning Apple products has always been seen as somewhat of a fashion statement. With their Apple Watch, Apple has officially entered the fashion market, using supermodels to promote it (Jacoby Zoldan, 2015). Because

32 of their success, the terms iPod, iPhone and iPad might become proprietary terms in the future, denoting any music player, smartphone and tablet.

Technology and pop culture have often mashed together. In 1995, Microsoft used Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry in their video manuals to explain and promote their operating system Windows 95 (Campbell and Kean, 2004: 290). The host of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon, is often seen using Apple products in his late-night show. Many fashion magazines use computer software to enhance their models’ appearance, while many music producers often use voice enhancing software to improve the quality of singing.

Teenagers are the target audience that pop artists strive to reach and influence. There are usually stronger social bonds between teenagers, i.e. the exchange of ideas and values is stronger than in any other demographic group. Computers and smartphones have ensured that teenagers are in constant contact, thus the exchange between them is instantaneous. Berger (2013: 340) writes that American students have an attention span of seven minutes, thus the information they hear or see must be interesting and varied.

Social networking has completely changed the interaction between film stars, music artists, newspapers and their fans and readership. No longer do fans have to wait for the next edition of a magazine to read interviews with their favourite films stars or pop singers. There are no more mediatory factors in the interaction between stars and fans. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have created a virtual meeting place for stars and their fans to communicate. Much of the interaction must be attributed to self-promotion, either promoting a new film, a new song or, in some cases, oneself. Facebook has become such a behemoth that on 24 August 2015 more than one billion users logged into their Facebook accounts, marking a milestone in social networking (Lee, 2015).

Personalization is one the most important and vital concepts in computer technology. Online services such as Google’s search engine and YouTube’s video sharing website, Netflix’s on-demand streaming service and Spotify’s music streaming service collect users’ data to ensure a more personalized service which enhances user experience. The convergence of technology and popular media is a

33 necessity for mass media companies in order to survive in the digital age. Otherwise, many companies could face a sharp decline in their audience or readership, which would result in lower profits and, quite possibly, an eventual bankruptcy.

It is imperative to reference technology as an integral part of popular culture. Companies dealing with the production of popular media are heavily reliant on modern technology, such as computers, smartphones, tablets, and the Internet, i.e. social networking. The inability to adapt to new technological inventions and new ways of media consumption can best be described by the Napster situation. Napster is a file-sharing computer service which was created in the USA in 1999 (Napster, 2015). Computers and millions of Internet users looked for new ways of acquiring music. While major record labels were still selling CDs, Internet users were sharing their music collections via Internet file-sharing services. Although services such as Napster were infringing copyright laws, that did not prevent Internet users from using them. It was only years later that major music labels realized that instead of legal battles, offering their collections to paid services, such as Apple’s iTunes music store (iTunes, 2015), was the better course of action, thus embracing the new technology.

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4 Creating new words The section examines several aspects of morphology, the prevailing one being word-formation. Additionally, first language acquisition is reviewed and compared to second/foreign language acquisition. However, the main part of this section is dedicated to word-formation processes. Basic concepts such as lexemes, morphemes and affixes are defined and explained, while an overview of word- formation processed is provided. The last part of the section addresses the question of word productivity, i.e. the characteristics words need in order to be acquired by language users. A better understanding of the basic concepts of word- formation and language acquisition provides a more detailed look at how words are created, acquired and disseminated in American popular culture.

The most basic concept in lexicology is a word. It is commonly thought of as a term that holds semantic meaning. Yet, linguists have defined the concept differently. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 48) define a word as “an intermediate structure smaller than a whole phrase and yet generally larger than a single sound.” However, this definition is only based on the written structure of a word. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 50) subsequently adjust their definition by writing that a word is “an uninterruptible unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes and which typically occurs in the structure of phrases.” Similarly, Plag (2003: 4) initially defines a word as an orthographic term claiming that “a word is an uninterrupted string of letters preceded by a blank space and followed by a blank space or a punctuation mark.” Admittedly, these definitions might be sufficient to non-linguists, but they lack morphological, phonological, semantic and syntactical aspects. A more detailed definition and description of a word and the difference between words, lexemes and morphemes is provided in section 4.2.

Ingo Plag (2003: 59-60) names three reasons that new words are coined: naming a new concept or thing (e.g. a diss tweet), syntactic recategorization in order to condensate information (e.g. to chauffeur instead of to drive someone in a vehicle) and to express attitude (diminutives such as sweetie, honey and duckling).

Words may be coined in ephemeral conversations, television or radio broadcasts, chat rooms, message boards, novels, newspaper articles and scientific papers.

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New coinages are called neologisms. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 5) explain neologisms as words which are created without being based on some prior word or phrase, e.g. blurb. Advertising agencies often produce new words and phrases in order to make a product sound more interesting and appealing to the wider population. The Oxford English Dictionary (neologism, n.d.c) describes neologism as “word or phrase which is new to the language; one which is newly coined.” The Collins English Dictionary (neologism, n.d.a) adds another element to the definition, writing that neologisms are familiar words which are used in new senses. The online edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary (neologism, n.d.b) supplements the definition with a psychological element, claiming that neologism is “a new word that is coined especially by a person affected with schizophrenia and is meaningless except to the coiner.” Merriam-Webster’s definition would make a neologism a nonce word. Bauer (1993: 45) defines a nonce word as “a new complex word coined by a speaker/writer on the spur of the moment to cover some immediate effect.” According to Bauer (1993: 45), a nonce word “ceases to be a nonce formation as soon as the speakers using it are aware of using the term which they have heard already: that is to say, virtually immediately.” If nonce words are picked up by language users, they are not considered nonce words anymore. Such words may then be institutionalized and lexicalized (Bauer, 1993: 48), or forgotten over time by the language community. The main difference between nonce words and neologisms is the longevity of neologisms compared to nonce words.

Words may also be coined by way of analogy, e.g. cheeseburger on the basis of hamburger or earwitness on the basis of eyewitness (Plag, 2003: 37). Such words occur because of changing social or technical situations. McFedries (2004: 14-15) writes that new words matter because they reflect our culture and have universal appeal. He continues (2004: 15-16, chapter I) that a language describes the world. If the world changes, so must the language by creating new words and meanings to adjust to new social and physical environments. Similar to McFedries, Trudgill (2000: 189) writes that language and society may occasionally exist in a reciprocal relationship. Changing one aspect may force changes in the other. Social aspects may be altered by forcing linguistic changes as in the case of

36 political correctness (PC), e.g. the euphemism physically challenged is nowadays a more acceptable term than crippled, thus trying to force a change in society to accept such individuals rather than discriminate against them.

Linguistic innovations in lexicology are more common than linguistic innovations in phonology or morphology. New lexical items occur more frequently than other changes in linguistics. However, they can also die out at a greater rate. Trudgill (2004: 147) writes that linguistic innovation can spread to other areas, especially to those nearest to it, while new lexical items may travel longer distances (Trudgill, 2004: 163). The Internet age has simplified the spread of linguistic change by abolishing geographical barriers of communication. While New York and London are divided by a great pond, the Atlantic, digital communication has enabled real-time communication via social networking, video-chat communication and other forms of Internet communication.

Other languages have always been a source of new lexical items in English. In the USA, the immigration waves in the 19th and 20th century brought along new words, phrases and expressions, e.g. rodeo from Spanish. In many cases direct contact with a foreign language is needed to borrow words. However, social media has ensured that people all over the world are in continual contact. Large international events bring the world together, where languages, ideologies and cultures mix. The English language has many loanwords. According to Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 25), loanwords represent more than seventy percent of all the words in Modern English, with French and Spanish providing many loanwords in recent years because of the geographical proximity of France and England, and Mexico and the USA (Jackson and Zé Amvela, 2004: 42-43).

Many words are created to fill lexical gaps due to new technologies or situations. Yet, new words may also appear as a result of mistakes, i.e. misspelling or typographical errors. Strategery is such an example of misspelling (strategery, n.d.). Although the word became popularized in the early 2000s on Saturday Night Live, its first use may be found in the 19th century. The term has come to signify George W. Bush’s presidency. The mock-Bushism strategery is often used ironically to describe unsound plans as in That was excellent planning. Your

37 strategery is flawless (e.g. after a failed attempt), whereas strategy normally holds a neutral connotation. Words may also be created because of human playfulness. These words tend to appear in the realm of humour. Berger (2013: 344-345) lists four techniques of eliciting humour: logic, language, identity and action or visual humour. Creating new words to elicit humour is a tested technique in American comedy series. According to Berger (2013: 346), American humour tends to use exaggeration rather than understatement. For example, in the American sitcom Seinfeld, the technique of exaggeration is often used, e.g. man hands to describe woman’s hands that may not look feminine.

While some words are already in existence, new meanings are attached to them, thus creating new lexemes. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 14) write that vocabulary is a continually changing system where existent lexemes disappear or their meanings broadened or narrowed, e.g. meat was once considered any kind of food. Through history the meaning was narrowed to the modern day meaning of animal flesh.

Close-knit groups, social or occupational, often create their own lexical items to communicate among themselves. Linguists use the terms slang and jargon when dealing with such lexical items. According to Allen (1993: 6) slang is “just a highly informal register of speech and does not differ from standard usages in any purely linguistic way.” Holmes (2001: 167) writes that slang “signals membership of a particular group.” She goes on by saying that slang “acts as a solidarity marker” and “can indicate membership of a close-knit social group” (Holmes, 2001: 170). What is more, slang terms usually play the role of synonyms. Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (1999: 64) point out that “slang terms typically have well-known, neutral, conventional synonyms.”, e.g. the Standard English synonym for the slang term freak out is lose control. McFedries (2004: 166) colourfully describes slang as “language at its most frisky.” Slang terms tend to be ephemeral. They tend to disappear with the generation’s progress into adulthood (Jackson and Zé Amvela, 2004: 135).

Unlike slang, which is associated with informal words and expressions, jargon is used for specialized events. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 128) write that jargon

38 refers to “specialist vocabularies associated with ʻoccupationsʼ that people engage in, either as a mode of employment or as a leisure pursuit or for some other purpose.” Additionally, Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 129) state that the term jargon may have a pejorative connotation, as in the case of doctors or lawyers, when they use their professional language in inappropriate situations to exhibit their superior knowledge or to confuse others. Jargon may be described as a puzzle for people that are not familiar with the specifics of a certain profession. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 129) describe it as “impenetrable to the outsiders”, i.e. only those acquainted with a certain profession know its vocabulary.

Moreover, the moral values of a society can result in an influx of new words. The words that should not be used or spoken in written or spoken language are taboo words. According to Trudgill (2000: 18) taboo words characterize behaviour which is supernaturally forbidden, immortal and improper. Such words and behaviour can result in the creation of euphemisms, e.g. in 1992, in the sitcom Seinfeld, episode “” (IMDB, n.d.), the term masturbation is avoided by the usage of cleverly coined phrases master of my domain, king of the county, lord of the manor and queen of the castle.

4.1 Words, acquisition and meaning So far, why and how new words are created has been described. The following sections are dedicated to word meanings and vocabulary acquisition. It is important to identify which words are easier to store in our mental vocabulary and the process it takes to achieve this. Only a detailed examination can provide an answer to the question of why some words become part of people’s vernacular and some fade away.

4.1.1 Vocabulary acquisition Unlike phonology and syntax, which are relatively stable aspects of a speaker’s linguistic competence, vocabulary acquisition is an ongoing process that starts at an early age and continues into old age (Meyerhoff, 2010: 140). There is a substantial amount of research on foreign language vocabulary acquisition.

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However, research on first language vocabulary acquisition has been lagging behind compared to that of foreign language acquisition. Nevertheless, some parallels may be made to first language acquisition. According to Chesley (2011: 1), watching television and films is one the more productive ways of acquiring new vocabulary for native speakers. The predominant method used is guessing from the context. However, learners of English have a more difficult time doing this because to do it successfully one must know at least 95 to 98 percent of the words in a specific text, song or film (Nation, 2001: 23). Both native and foreign language speakers may also apply word analysis, i.e. taking a word apart into roots and affixes. The meaning of the word is deduced from the resulting parts. Speakers can look up a word in the dictionary or ask a person that is familiar with the meaning of the word.

Plag (2003: 4) states that an average native speakers knows between 45,000 and 60,000 words, which are stored in our mental lexicon. Similar to speakers of English as a foreign language, native speakers also have an active and passive vocabulary. Because of the large number of words stored in the mental lexicon, words need to be organized accordingly. Words such as freedom could be stored in our mental lexicon as two entities, the root free and the affix -dom. Speakers that are aware of the meaning of both parts could combine both parts during discourse to form the noun freedom. However, as Plag (2003: 49) writes, high- frequency words, e.g. freedom in our case, are more easily accessible to speakers than low-frequency words such as fiefdom. There are two ways of accessing words from our mental lexicon, i.e. the whole word route or the decomposition route (Plag 2003: 49). In the first case the whole word is accessed and in the second part elements of the word are accessed to form a complete word. The faster route always wins. Additionally, higher frequency words are less likely to be decomposed, while lower frequency words are more likely to be decomposed (Plag 2003: 176-177). Word accessibility is an important aspect in vocabulary acquisition as it helps determine which methods are best suited for teaching specific words.

Laumann Long and Shaw (2000) have researched vocabulary acquisition in adults. They have analysed differences in vocabulary acquisition between younger

40 and older adults. Younger adults ranged between the ages of 18 and 27, while older adults ranged between the ages of 55 and 85 (Laumann Long and Shaw, 2000: 655). A large mental lexicon suggests that much of vocabulary acquisition is done unintentionally. Sternberg (1987), and Sternberg and Powell (1983) state that “most real-world vocabulary learning takes place in context” (as cited in Laumann Long and Shaw, 2000: 652). Working memory and a person’s existing vocabulary are the two most important components in learning vocabulary from context (Daneman and Green, 1986, as cited in Laumann Long and Shaw, 2000: 652). Learning from context is only possible if speakers know the majority of words used in text or speech. Therefore, it is much easier for native speakers to acquire novel words from context than it is for learners of English, whose English vocabulary size is much smaller. Laufer (2000, as cited in Schmitt, 2008: 332), based on her own work, writes that after approximately 1800-2400 hours of English learning, a Chinese English major’s vocabulary size is about 4000 lexical items, which is more than ten times lower than an average native speaker’s vocabulary size. Schmitt (2008: 331) stipulates that one would need about 8000- 9000 word families to adequately “read a variety of texts without unknown vocabulary being a problem.”

Laumann Long and Shaw (2000) stipulate that a larger vocabulary knowledge base and lifelong experience puts older adults at an advantage compared to younger adults, even though their working memory capacity is lower. Indeed, their research concluded that older adults do not only have vocabulary acquisition skills but that their acquisition skills are better in comparison to younger adults’ vocabulary acquisition skills (Laumann Long and Shaw, 2000: 660-661). Bowles (1994, as cited in Laumann Long and Shaw, 2000: 653-654) states that both younger and older generations encode and organize information comparably. Yet, older generations might be slower in accessing the information.

One of the key aspects of vocabulary acquisition in EFL (English as a foreign language) is the repeated exposure of new words. Novel words need to be heard, seen and spoken numerous times in order to become part of one’s active vocabulary. There is some debate as to the number of exposures needed for speakers to acquire new vocabulary. Nation (2001, as cited in Schmitt, 2008: 343)

41 gives a speculative number of between five and twenty repeated exposures, while Waring and Takaki (2003, as cited in Schmitt, 2008: 348) observed that at least eight repeated exposures are required for learners to have about a 50 percent chance of identifying a word on a multiple choice test three months later.

Vocabulary acquisition in a classroom setting and outside the classroom have diverse features, such as different learner motivation. Motivation is one of the most important factors in successful learning. There are some learners who are more motivated in a classroom setting than outside the classroom and vice versa. There are two types of vocabulary learning, intentional and incidental. Intentional learning is goal-oriented learning, while incidental is not. Schmitt (2008: 341) writes that “although research has demonstrated that valuable learning can accrue from incidental exposure […], intentional vocabulary learning […] almost always leads to greater and faster gains, with a better chance of retention and of reaching productive levels of mastery.” Schmitt’s research was based on EFL teaching, which may have similarities to first language teaching, but is fundamentally different.

Chesley (2011) has conducted research on vocabulary acquisition through listening to hip hop music. Her work entailed examining students’ understanding of AAVE as the primary variety of English used in hip hop. She stipulates that some knowledge of popular culture increases the rate of vocabulary acquisition. Chesley (2011: 5) concludes that non-African American young adults do in fact learn African-American English words through listening to hip hop. She (2011: 5) suggests that “vocabulary acquisition is a multifaceted process in which personal identity, in the form of cultural knowledge, social ties, and other musical elements, plays a crucial role.” Her research shows that media consumption, which plays an important role in young adults’ lives, can cause significant gains in vocabulary acquisition.

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4.1.2 Words and meaning This section provides a brief explanation of semantic diversity. It is done in order to better understand newly created words and the subsequent word analyses that follow in the course of the thesis.

Words represent meaning, e.g. the meaning can be an object, a situation, a concept or a theory. Ferdinand De Saussure’s creation and definition of a linguistic sign has become the foundation of lexicology. In his book Cours de linguistique générale (trans. Course in General Linguistics), De Saussure (1959: 66-67) defines a linguistic sign as a concept and a sound image or signified (signifié) and signifier (significant), i.e. every word has a meaning attached to it and vice versa.

However, De Saussure’s theory is incomplete, as it does not take into account homonymy. There are examples of words that express more than one meaning, which are named polysemous words. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 58) write that polysemy refers to words that have two or more meanings, e.g. a bank may be a place where financial transactions take place or the land alongside a river. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 147) name homophony a superordinate term of homonymy, homophony and polysemy, which means that they sound the same. Examples of homonyms are fast as in “quickly” or “to abstain from food” and grave as in “great, immediate” or “a place where the deceased are buried”. Homonymous words have the same spelling but different meanings and are also sometimes called homographs, whereas homophonous words have the same pronunciation, but different meanings and spelling, e.g. right and write or and bare. In addition, Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 147) write that polysemous words have different meanings, e.g. the word plane has different meanings recorded in Oxford Dictionaries (plane, n.d.). It can be used either as a noun, verb or an adjective. As a noun it can mean a flat surface, a level of existence, an aeroplane, a tool used to smooth a wooden surface or a tall spreading tree.

There are as many different meanings and combinations with words as there are classifications for these lexical units; much of the linguistic terminology signifying diverse relationships between meaning and image are based on the root –onym “name” (Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 152). Stockwell and Minkova

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(2005: 152) define metonymy as “an association of a particular type, usually accidental association in space and time.” They provide the example The White House, which does not refer to the actual building, but to the current President of the USA and his staff.

McFedries (2004: 45) describes retronym as “a word formed from an older word by attaching a previously unnecessary modifier.” The example acoustic was thus formed from electric guitar.

Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 149) describe heteronyms as words which are spelled the same, but have a different meaning and pronunciation, e.g. bass “fish” bass “male voice”, while a hyponym is “a word whose meaning is subsumed under the more general meaning of another word, e.g. a dog, a cat, a horse and a lion are subordinate terms of the lexical item animals.

Moreover, antonyms represent meaning, while synonyms represent approximately the same meaning, e.g. fast is an antonym of slow, whereas fast can also be a synonym of quick.

What is more, Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 152-153) define analogy as “the perception of similarity between some concrete object or process and some abstract concept or process”, meaning that a word’s literal sense is extended or used in a figurative sense. Some examples representing analogy are The thief legged it after he saw the police or Jane was the cause of many heart problems. The phrases legged it and heart problems are used figuratively, meaning to run away in the case of legged it and love problems in the case of heart problems.

According to Schneider (2003: 57), diminutives are words that possess the semantic component small or little and a positive or negative emotional or attitudinal aspect. Examples include doggie, sweetie, Johnnie and little Mary. Such words are also called terms of endearment and are commonly used in private settings.

In the social scope of word meaning, the terms amelioration and pejoration are used. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 156) define amelioration as raising the status of a word, while pejoration is considered as lowering the status of a word. An

44 example of amelioration is the adjective nice, which used to mean foolish, silly or ignorant in medieval English. The current meaning of pleasant and kind may be traced to the mid-18th century (nice, n.d.). Notorious is an example of pejoration. It currently has a negative connotation in the sense of being famous for something bad. When the term was borrowed into English in the late 15th century, it had a neutral meaning in the sense of generally known (notorious, n.d.).

4.2 Word- formation It was stated in section 4 that word is an orthographic structure which is smaller than a phrase but bigger than a sound and is surrounded by a blank space and/or followed by a punctuation mark. According to Bauer (1993: 11), unlike words or word-forms, which “have phonological and orthographic shape […] a lexeme is a much more abstract unit.” Example 1 best clarifies the distinction between a word and a lexeme.

(1) I speak German and Mark speaks Chinese.

Speak and speaks are two distinct words or word-forms. Yet, there is only one lexeme speak. Speak, speaks, speaking, spoke and spoken are different words, which belong to the inflectional paradigm of the lexeme speak. The citation form of a lexeme is the one which is entered in a dictionary (Bauer, 1993: 12). In the example 1, it is the lexeme speak.

Word-formation is the process of creating new words (or better, lexemes). In the following sections, word-formation is examined in detail, while in addition, fundamental linguistic terms such as morphemes, lexemes, stems and roots are explained. The field of morphology may be conceptualized with the following figure:

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Figure 1: Subsections of morphology (Plag, 2003: 17)

The figure represents word-formation as part of morphology. It differs from inflection in that it encodes lexical meaning, while inflection encodes grammatical category (Plag, 2003: 17). Plag (2003: 17) adds that word-formation is not syntactically relevant, yet, inflection is. In addition, word-formation can occur within derivatives. On the other hand, inflection can only occur outside derivatives. Word-formation processes can often change the word class of newly created words, whereas inflection does not. Newly created words are often semantically opaque, while inflected words seldom exhibit semantic opacity. Word-formation may be restrictive in its productivity, whereas inflection is fully productive. Lastly, inflection is limited to suffixation, while word-formation is not constrained to it, but may contain prefixation and infixation as well.

Examples 2 and 3 show the difference between lexical meaning and grammatical categories:

(2) She is a good worker. (3) She works were hard.

The word worker acquires a new lexical meaning, while the word works only signals third person singular. Thus, worker is a product of word-formation and works a product of inflection. Plag (2003: 14) writes that the suffix –er as in worker is only relevant for the syntax in that it signals a noun and not a verb.

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There is no relevance for the syntax whether the word ends with the suffix –er, -ion or –able.

Another characteristic that may be observed with word-formation, especially derivation, is inside derivation. Derivatives may be constructed from several suffixes and prefixes, e.g. activate. The derivative is constructed from the root act and the suffixes –ive and –ate. Grammatical rules dictate that the third person singular suffix –s cannot occur inside the derivative as in activsate* but must occur after the last suffix as in activates.

(4) Mary is playing with her children. (5) Her children are extremely playful.

Words that undergo the process of word-formation often change word class, as in example 5. The verb play adds the adjectival suffix –ful to become the adjective playful. In example 3, the verb play attaches the inflectional suffix –ing, which does not change word class but signals a present participle. According to Plag (2003: 15-16), semantic opacity is often found in word-formation. It may be described as the inability to identify meaning from the sum of constituent parts of a word. Derivatives and compounds, such as interview and skinhead, are semantically opaque as their parts do not provide a clear meaning, e.g. the compound skinhead is constructed from the parts skin and head which do not convey anything about the meaning of skinhead, i.e. “a young man of a subculture characterized by close-cropped hair and heavy boots, often perceived as aggressive” (skinhead, n.d.).

Inflectional categories have a tendency to be almost fully productive, i.e. plural morphemes tend to be used for all nouns as in cars, baskets, watches and flowers. However, there are some irregular plural forms such as mice, sheep and teeth. Nevertheless, the fact remains that plurality is expressed by the addition of inflectional morphemes. In contrast, not all nouns take the same derivational suffix, e.g. the suffix –dom may only be used with certain nouns as in stardom, kingdom and freedom. The suffix –dom may not be attached to nouns such as brother (brotherdom*) or slave (slavedom*), hence derivation is not fully productive.

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Finally, derivation is not limited to suffixation. Inflectional morphemes only occur at the end of words, e.g. the third person singular form is constructed with the addition of the inflectional suffix –s as in plays, reads and transports. Conversely, derivatives may be formed with suffixes as well as prefixes, e.g. rehabilitation, anti-government and international.

4.2.1 Parts of the word The following sections present the basic concepts of word-formations such as words, lexemes, morphemes and affixes. The word-formation processes of derivation, compounding, conversion, blending, clipping, abbreviations and back- formation are examined and described. Derivation and compounding are examined in more detail, as we expect them to be the most productive word- formation processes in the empirical section of this thesis.

The smallest unit of a word is called a morpheme. Plag (2003: 10) calls morphemes the smallest meaningful units. Words must be composed of at least one morpheme, e.g. big and lip (Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 57). Such words are called monomorphemic words (Plag, 2003: 25), as they cannot be split into smaller units. Words may be constructed from two or more morphemes, e.g. undo and blackbird. The word undo is constructed from two morphemes, the bound morpheme un- and the free morpheme do. (Jackson and Zé Amvela, 2004: 3). The example blackbird, on the other hand, is constructed from the two free morphemes black and bird. Free morphemes can occur alone, while bound morphemes must be attached to another morpheme. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 59) write that one of the most important characteristics of morphemes is their recyclability, i.e. their ability to be used again and again.

Complex words can, therefore, be deconstructed into smaller units. The following figure illustrates the deconstruction.

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undo

un- + do

Figure 2: Lexeme analysis The lexeme undo is constructed from the prefix un- and the base do. A base is a part of a lexeme to which affixes attach (Plag, 2003: 1). The base do is also a root. Plag (2003: 11) writes that roots “refer to bases that cannot be analyzed further into morphemes.” He clarifies the terminology by providing a visualized analysis of the derivative colonialization.

Figure 3: Terminological distinction between roots and bases (Plag, 2003:11) The figure shows that the lexeme colonialization has one root colony and three bases colony, colonial and colonialize.

Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 61) define roots as carriers of the basic meaning “from which the rest of the sense of the word can be derived.” Additionally, they classify affixes as morphemes which are not roots and list three characteristics of affixes which make them different from roots, i.e. affixes cannot form lexemes by themselves, as their meaning is not always clear or they can be completely void of meaning and there are fewer affixes than there are roots (Stockwell and Minkova, 2005: 63).

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Affixes perform two functions, derivational and inflectional (Stockwell and Minkova, 2005: 64-66). Affixes may be used in the creation of new lexemes, e.g. the affix –al in colonial signifying characteristics of a colony. Such affixes perform derivational function. The example writes in John writes novels for a living represents inflectional function, signifying a syntactic category. The affix –s in writes signifies third person singular in the present tense. This is also called subject-verb agreement (Plag, 2003: 15).

Words that have an identical affix attached to them are said to have shared derivation (Stockwell and Minkova, 2005: 70), e.g. playful, harmful, wonderful and grateful have shared derivation as all four examples have the suffix –ful attached to them.

It is normally agreed that English possesses only prefixes and suffixes. However, there are some cases where infixation may be observed. Plag (2003: 101-104) names expletives as in the example abso-bloody-lutely expletive infixes. The role of affixes is to create new lexemes, i.e. new meanings. Technically, expletive infixes do not express new meaning, they only express the speaker’s emotional attitude. Plag (2003: 101-104) regards expletive infixation as a case of prosodic morphology, i.e. the shape of complex words is determined by prosodic units and prosodic restrictions.

4.2.2 Derivation Derivation, often called affixation, is a process of forming new words with the addition of affixes. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 70) define derivation as “a lexical process which actually forms a new word out of existing one by the addition of a derivational affix.” The examples retake, sinful, anti-government and selectivity are constructed by the addition of affixes.

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(1) prefix base suffix derivative

re- take (v.) retake (v.)

sin (n.) -ful sinful (adj.)

anti- govern (v.) -ment anti-government (n.)

select (v.) -ive, -ity selectivity (n.)

Derivatives may be formed by the addition of prefixes, as in the example of retake, or by the addition of suffixes as in the example of sinful. In addition, the example anti-government is formed by the addition of prefixes and suffixes, while the example selectivity is formed by the addition of a double suffix, -ive and -ity. Plag (2003: 15) writes that contrary to inflectional suffixes, which cannot change the word class of the base words, derivational suffixes can in fact change word class, as can be observed from the examples above. The example sinful is constructed from the noun sin and the adjectival suffix –ful, thus forming the adjective sinful. The verb govern has the prefix anti- and a suffix –ment attached to it. The suffix –ment takes precedence over the prefix anti-.

(2) govern (v.) -ment anti- + government (n.) anti- government (n.)

Suffixes tend to be class-changing, while prefixes tend to be class-maintaining affixes (Jackson and Zé Amvela, 2004: 75-76). Normally, prefixes only act as modifiers (Plag, 2003: 99). However, there are a few prefixes that belong to the group of class-changing derivational affixes, e.g. prefixes be- and en-.

(3) be- + friend (n.) befriend (v.)

(4) en- + slave (n.) enslave (v.)

Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 92) write that final suffixes determine the word class of newly formed words. A look at the example selectivity reveals the class- changing nature of suffixes.

(5) select (v.) + -ive selective (adj.) + -ity selectivity (n.)

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The derivative selectivity undergoes two class-changing formations from the base select, from the verb select to the adjective selective and finally to the noun selectivity. Similarly, Plag (2003, 182) states that the syntactic category of the derived word is always determined by the suffix and not the base word.

There are examples of cross-formation in English, e.g. every potential –ist derivative has a corresponding –ism derivative and potential derivatives ending in –ive have corresponding derivatives ending in –ion (Plag, 2003: 187-188).

(6) activist (n.) activism (n.) behaviourist (n.) behaviourism (n.) (7) active (adj.) action (n.) progressive (adj.) progression (n.)

There is some debate over the number of affixes in English. Different linguists provide different numbers. Hay and Baayen (2002a, as cited in Plag, 2003: 85) list 80 affixes (26 prefixes and 54 suffixes), while Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 89- 94) list 129 affixes (80 prefixes and 49 suffixes).

There are nominal, verbal, adjectival and adverbial suffixes in English. Nominal suffixes often attach to verbs, adjectives and nouns to form abstract nouns (Plag, 2003: 87-88), e.g. -age, -ance and –dom.

(8) spill (v.) + -age spillage (n.) (9) persevere (v.) + -ance perseverance (n.) (10) king (n.) + -dom kingdom (n.)

Verbal suffixes include –ate, -ify, -en and –ize. Such examples include:

(11) regular (adj.) + -ate regulate (v.) (12) humid (adj.) + -ify humidify (v.) (13) dark (adj.) + -en darken (v.) (14) popular (adj.) + -ize popularize (v.)

Adjectival suffixes may be subdivided into two groups, i.e. adjectival suffixes forming relational adjectives and adjectival suffixes forming qualitative adjectives

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(Plag, 2003: 94). According to Plag, if adjectival derivatives appear in the attributive position, e.g. a comical situation, they are called relational adjectives. Yet, in the sentence The situation was very comical, the derivative comical is in the predicative position and has thus acquired a qualitative sense. Some of the adjectival suffixes are –able, -al, -ary, -esque, -less and –y.

(15) agree (v.) + -able agreeable (adj.) (16) dialect (n.) + -al dialectal (adj.) (17) compliment (n.) + -ary complimentary (adj.) (18) statue (n.) + -esque statuesque (adj.) (19) fear (n.) + -less fearless (adj.) (20) health (n.) + -y healthy (adj.)

There are two adverbial suffixes that need to be mentioned, i.e. the suffixes –ly and –wise. Plag (2003: 97-98) writes that the occurrence of the de-adjectival suffix –ly “is for the most part syntactically triggered and obligatory, and it can therefore be considered inflectional.” Nevertheless, the suffix –ly can produce a change in the meaning between the adjective and the derived adverb.

(21) hard (adj. in the sense of requiring effort) + -ly hardly (adv. in the sense of scarcely) (22) culture (n.) + -wise culture-wise (adv.)

The suffix –ing may be used as a derivational suffix or an inflectional one.

(23) meet (v.) + -ing meeting (n.) (24) charm (n.) + -ing charming (adj.) (25) watch (v.) + -ing watching (present participle) – Jane is watching TV right now.

The suffix –ing in the examples 23 and 24 belongs to the group of derivational suffixes, while in the example 25, –ing is an inflectional suffix.

Plag (2003: 98-101) classifies prefixes into the following groups, i.e. “a large group that quantify over their base words meaning, for example ‘one’ […]”,

53 locative prefixes, temporal prefixes, negation prefixes and other prefixes that do not fit into other groups. The prefixes uni-, bi- and multi- quantify over their base, e.g. unisex, bilingual and multi-cultural. The prefixes circum-, counter- and retro- belong to the group of locative prefixes. Examples include:

(26) circum- + navigate (v.) circumnavigate (v.) (27) counter- + strike (v.) counterstrike (v.) (28) retro- + active (adj.) retroactive (adj.)

Some of the temporal prefixes are pre-, post- and neo-.

(29) pre- + arrange (v.) prearrange (v.) (30) post- + war (n.) post-war (n.) (31) neo- + classical (adj.) neoclassical (adj.)

Prefixes expressing negation are de-, non-, un- and other.

(32) de- + activate (v.) deactivate (v.) (33) non- + addictive (adj.) non-addictive (adj.) (34) un- + do (v.) undo (v.)

There are many prefixes that do not belong to one of the groups, e.g. mal-, mis- and vice-.

(35) mal- + nourished (adj.) malnourished (adj.) (36) mis- + understand (v.) misunderstand (v.) (37) vice- + president (n.) vice-president (n.)

The productivity of affixes changes with time, as evidenced by the suffix –ment, which was very productive in earlier centuries, yet it is hardly used in word- formation production today (Bauer, 2001, as cited in Plag, 2003: 51). The linguistic data gathered for this thesis does not contain any new coinages ending in –ment, confirming this statement. Other suffixes used in the production of new words in modern English include the examples –gate (signifying scandals), -ware (short for software), -tainment (short for entertainment) and –aholic (signifying

54 addiction) (McFedries, 2004: 539-545), e.g. Nipplegate, spyware, infotainment and shopaholic.

The digital age has laid the groundwork for the emergence of many prefixes from the field of electronic technology. McFedries (2004: 533-534) lists some of them, e.g. e-, Net-, cyber- and i-. Examples include e-commerce, Netspeak, cyberspace and iPhone. Another trend of the modern times is environmental awareness, hence a plethora of new coinages with the prefixes bio- and eco-, e.g. biodiesel, biometrics, eco-tourism and eco-tech (McFedries, 2004: 534-535).

4.2.3 Compounding Compounding is one of the most productive word-formation processes, as well as one of the most difficult to clearly define and describe. Definitions range from the simplistic to complex. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 79) state that compounds are “stems consisting of more than one root.” Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 66- 67) add that compounds may also contain affixes. They write that compounds are stems, similar to simple non-compound stems, e.g. an art teacher is a compound of art and teacher, while the right-hand component teacher is a derivative of the verb teach and the suffix –er. Plag (2003: 135) completes the definition by defining a compound as “a word that consists of two elements, the first of which is either a root, a word or a phrase, the second of which is either a root or a word.”

Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 80) describe compounds as single lexical units. They cannot be interrupted by other constituents, e.g. once the compound a pickpocket is interrupted by another element (e.g. pick the pocket) the lexeme ceases to be considered a compound. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 81) add that parts of a compound cannot be modified individually. They provide the example of air-sick, which cannot be modified as hot air-sick or as air-very sick. However, the compound as a whole may be modified as in They were seriously air-sick.

According to Plag (2003: 135), compounds are constructed from a modifier and a head. The modifier is the left-hand member and the head is the right-hand member of the compound. In the example an art teacher the modifier is art and the head of

55 the compound is teacher, thus the compound takes the meaning of a teacher of art. According to Plag (2003: 135), a compound head always occurs on the right- hand side. Also, the head of the compound holds most of its semantic and syntactic information.

Compounds and phrases are similar in orthographic structure, but differ in stress patterns. Chomsky and Halle (1968, as cited in Plag, 2003: 137) explain that stress in phrases is on the last word, while in compounds it is on the left-hand member. The nuclear stress rule governs phrasal stress and the compound stress rule governs stress in compounds. The difference between phrasal stress and compound stress can be explained by the examples a blackboard /'blækbo:d/ and a black board /blæk 'bo:d/. The first example represents a compound and the second example a phrase, as evident in the stress patterns. Also, the meanings of the two are completely different, i.e. a blackboard is a teaching aid used for writing on, while a black board is any kind of board that is black in colour.

Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 83) explain that the right-hand member of a compound determines the word class of a compound, e.g. pickpocket and spaceship are both nouns, as the last elements are nouns, while seasick and north- bound are adjectives with right-hand members represented by adjectives.

The description of compound class must begin with the distinction between subordinative and coordinative compounds. Subordinative compounds are constructed from a dependent modifier and a head, while in coordinative compounds both elements are of equal status (Bauer and Huddleston, 2002, 1646). Examples of subordinative compounds include a traffic cone, ice water and an ashtray. The heads of all three examples are modified by the left-hand elements, while the left-hand elements are dependent on the heads. Contrarily, coordinative compounds possess constituent parts which are of equal status, e.g. an actor- director, bitter-sweet and a poet-translator. Most compounds belong to the group of subordinative compounds (Bauer and Huddleston, 2002: 1646).

Compounds may be classified into different classes depending on their structure and their lexical meaning. Spencer and Zwicky (2005: 68) describe endocentric and exocentric compounds as the most basic and interesting types of compounds.

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According to Plag (2003: 186), the semantic head of endocentric compounds is inside the compound itself, e.g. a laser printer and a book cover. In the example a laser printer, the semantic head is a printer and laser is a modifier, thus one can describe it as a kind of printer. Contrary to endocentric compounds, the semantic head of exocentric compounds is outside the compound. Examples include a pickpocket, a redneck and a sweetheart. The example a redneck has a semantic head outside the compound, as the meaning cannot be discerned from the parts of the compound. The lexical meaning of the compound is not a neck that is red, but rather “a working-class white person from the southern US, especially a politically reactionary one” (redneck, n.d.).

Another class of compounds are copulative compounds. Plag (2003: 146-147) defines them as having two semantic heads, both equally contributing to the lexical meaning of the compound. He provides examples such a singer- songwriter, a scientist-explorer, the doctor-patient gap and the mind-body problem. The examples a singer-songwriter and a scientist-explorer are sometimes called appositional compounds, as both compound elements equally express a unified lexical meaning, while the examples the doctor-patient gap and the mind-body problem belong to the group of coordinative compounds, where doctor-patient and mind-body are in a particular relationship with the following noun (Plag, 2003: 146-147).

Moreover, many compounds are constructed from lexical items which underwent the process of derivation before becoming a part of a compound, e.g. sleepwalking, binge-watching, a dishwasher and a rugby player. It is the head of a compound that is a derivative. Such compounds are called synthetic compounds (Plag, 2003: 149). The semantic heads of the compounds are deverbal nouns, i.e. the suffixes –ing and –er attach to the verbs walk, watch, wash and play to form nouns, while the left-hand members of the compounds serve as arguments of the verbs (Plag, 2003, 149). Semantically, left-hand members of the compounds help define the overall meaning of the compounds, thus sleepwalking is walking, while one is sleeping and a rugby player is a player of rugby. Plag (2003: 149) writes that the “process, by which some entity in the neighborhood of a head word is assigned the status of the head word’s argument is called argument-linking.”

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There are some examples of compounds that are phonologically motivated. Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1666) describe five categories. The examples cop-shop, walkie-talkie and gang-bang are the only normal compounds which are phonologically motivated. Such compounds are constructed from two existing words that denote a single lexical meaning. Another category of compounds is represented by examples such as boogie-woogie and super-duper. In the two examples, only the first base, i.e. boogie and super, holds a semantic meaning, while the second base merely provides a rhyme. The next group of compounds is constructed from words that have no independent meaning in modern English. Examples include fuddy-duddy, hodgepodge and hoity-toity. The last two groups of compounds are not defined by rhyme but by vowel contrast, e.g. chitchat, shilly-shally zigzag, clip-clop, singsong and ping-pong. The first three examples have a vowel change from /ɪ/ to /æ/, while the last three change their vowel from /ɪ/ to /ɒ/. In the examples chitchat, shilly-shally, clip-clop and singsong, the right- hand member bears the original meaning and in the examples zigzag and ping- pong, neither base holds an independent meaning.

Another class of compounds that is very productive in modern English is neo- classical compounds. Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1661) define a neo-classical compound as “a compound where at least one of the component bases is a combining form.” According to Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1661) and Plag (2003: 155), compound components are of Greek and Latin origin. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 82) add that such roots do not normally appear as single lexemes in English, while neo-classical compounds may often be heard in scientific circles such as medicine and technology. Neo-classical compounds differ in the position of Latin and Greek roots. Plag (2003: 156) enumerates several examples, such as astro- (e.g. astrophysics), bio- (e.g. biology), biblio- (e.g. bibliography), -graphy (e.g. sonography), -logy (e.g. psychology) and –phobe (e.g. xenophobe). The first three examples are used as left-hand members of the compound or in the initial position and the last three as right-hand members or in the final position. Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1661) and Plag (2003: 156) name left-hand roots as initial combining forms, and right-hand roots as final combining forms. It was stated in section 4.2.2 that bio- and eco- are prefixes.

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However, Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1665-1666) state that there is some similarity between the two. For one, such combining forms may acquire affix-like characteristics when attaching themselves to free bases, e.g. microchip and bioengineer. Yet, the combining forms bio- and eco- should be considered combining forms as they can also combine with other bound combining forms, e.g. biolysis and ecology, while affixes cannot combine to other affixes, e.g. reism* or predom*

There is some discrepancy in the spelling of compounds. The same compound may be written in three different ways in different dictionaries or even in different editions of the same dictionary, e.g. a compound may be hyphenated, open or solid. This is a result of different nesting policies used by dictionaries. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 164-165) provide the examples of land crab and land- mine. The compound land crab is hyphenated (land-crab) in the 8th edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary and open (land crab) in the 9th edition of the dictionary, while landmine is hyphenated (land-mine) in the 8th edition of the Concise Oxford dictionary and solid (landmine) in the 9th edition.

4.2.4 Conversion A process in which words are not created by combining free and bound morphemes but by changing the word class of existing words is called conversion. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 86) define conversion as “a process by which a word belonging to one word class is transferred to another word class without any concomitant change of form, either in pronunciation or spelling.” Plag (2003: 107), and Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 12) add that conversion belongs to the word-formation process of derivation without any overt marking or affixation. However, there are some linguists, such as Koziol (1937) and Strang (1968), who write that conversion is a separate word-formation process similar to compounding and derivation (Bauer, 1993: 32). There are various types of conversion depending on its directionality. Plag (2003: 108) lists four types of conversion, noun to verb, verb to noun, adjective to verb and adjective to noun. Plag enumerates other conversion types. However, these are only marginally used,

59 e.g. preposition to verb. Plag (2003: 107-108) provides examples of the four most common conversion types:

(1) the bottle (n.) to bottle (v.) (2) to guess (v.) a guess (n.) (3) open (adj.) to open (v.) (4) poor (adj.) the poor (n.) (5) down (prep.) to down (v.)

There is some debate as to the directionality of conversion, i.e. which word class came first. Plag (2003: 108-111) discusses the topic of directionality and suggests several methods of analysis for determining the primary form. One of the methods of determining directionality is to analyse the history of English and see which word came first. Another one is to analyse words for their inflectional behaviour. Words that express irregular inflectional behaviour are more likely to be the source of conversion, while words with regular inflectional behaviour are usually derived, e.g. a drink is a deverbal noun, as it is derived from the verb to drink which has an irregular past tense form. Additionally, the change in stress pattern is an indication of deverbal nouns, e.g. a construct is derived from the verb to construct. The only visible marker of dissimilarity is pronunciation. Verbs (e.g. to constrúct) place primary stress on the last syllable, while the derived nouns (e.g. a cónstruct) place it on the first syllable. The final method of analysis is to examine the frequency of use. Plag (2003: 111) writes that derived words are normally less frequent as they are semantically more complex, which narrows their range of meaning.

Converting nouns into verbs has become a trend in modern times much to the dismay of many language purists. Stephen Fry (Rogers, 2011, 3:51-3:56), a British actor, comedian and writer, has contributed his thoughts on the subject of noun-verb conversion. In his assessment, converting nouns into verbs is only frowned upon and seen as ugly because it is new and people do not like it, not because of any linguistic or stylistic reasons. In my opinion, conversion of nouns into verbs enriches the language rather than taints its purity.

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4.2.5 Blending The process of blending may be described as building a new word from two existing ones. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 87), Plag (2003: 121), and Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1636) define blending as formations of two or rarely three words into one single lexical unit. In addition, Plag (2003: 121-122), and Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1636) write that blends lose much of the phonetic or orthographic material of their original bases. Some of the examples provided by Plag, and Bauer and Huddleston are:

(1) breakfast + lunch brunch (2) breath + analyser breathalyser (3) telephone + banking telebanking

As evidenced from the examples, blends or portmanteaus are combined by two different words to form a single lexical unit. Both of the original words may be shortened or only one word may undergo the process of reduction.

Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1636) distinguish between four types of blends:

(4) parachute + troops paratroops (5) guess + estimate guesstimate (6) Spanish + English Spanglish (7) motor + hotel motel

The example paratroops represents the first type where the first part of the first base (para-) and the whole of the second base (troops) are combined to form a blend. Guesstimate is constructed from the whole first base (guess) and the final part of the second base (-timate), which represents the second type of blends. Spanglish is constructed from the first part of the first base (Span-) and the final part of the second base (-glish). Such types of blends belong to the third group of blends. The final type of blends is represented by the example motel. Blends of this type have a central part, common to both bases.

Alternatively, Plag (2003: 122) classifies blends according to their meaning. There are two types of blends which are represented by the following examples:

(8) motor + hotel motel

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(9) breakfast + lunch brunch

Example 8 belongs to the first type of blends according to Plag’s typology, i.e. a compound-like formation which is shortened to form a blend, where the first part modifies the second. The example motel is a kind of hotel that is primarily used by motorists and other drivers. On the other hand, example 9 resembles copulative compounds, where both elements of the compound contribute equally to the whole meaning. Therefore, a brunch is both a breakfast and a lunch.

4.2.6 Clipping Another word-formation process which entails word reduction to produce new words is known as clipping, shortening or truncation. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 88) define clipping as “the type of word-formation device in which only part of the stem is retained.” Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 88) distinguish between shortening and clipping. In their view, clipping is only a part of shortenings that also include backformation, initialism and aphetic forms. Contrary to Jackson and Zé Amvela, Plag (2003: 116-121) distinguishes between clipping and truncation. He (2003: 116) defines truncation as “a process in which the relationship between a derived word and its base is expressed by the lack of phonetic material in the derived word.” On the other hand, clipped forms “express familiarity with the denotation of the derivative” (Plag, 2003: 121), e.g. the clipped form of mic from microphone is used by singers. Plag (2003: 121) adds that some words may lose their in-group attachment and become part of a larger community. He enumerates the example ad from advertisement.

Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 10) simplify the definition of clipping by stating that “shortenings may take away part of a word, usually a single syllable, and throw the rest away, […].”

There are several types of clipping, depending on the position of reduction. Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1634-1636) differentiate between plain clippings and embellished clippings.

(1) condominium condo

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(2) telephone phone (3) influenza flu

Examples such as condo belong to back-clipping, where the final part of the word is reduced. Phone is an example of fore-clipping. Words of this type lose material from the front of the word. There are also examples of fore- and back-clipping, which may be seen in the example flu, which is formed from the original word influenza. Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1635) name examples of this type ambiclippings.

Embellished clippings are constructed by reducing a word and attaching a suffix to it. Some of the examples provided by Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1636) include:

(4) association football soc + -er soccer (5) turpentine turp + -s turps (6) pregnant preg + -er + -s preggers

4.2.7 Abbreviations The process of creating abbreviations is similar to the process of blending and clipping. All three processes undergo the elimination of material from their word structure. However, only orthography plays a role in creating abbreviations and not prosodic categories as in the case of blending and clipping (Plag, 2003: 126). Plag adds that blends and abbreviations are similar, as they are both formed from a combination of parts of different words.

Abbreviations differ according to their phonological and orthographic characteristics. The following examples represent the two categories of abbreviations.

(1) Central Intelligence Agency CIA (2) Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI (3) acquired immune deficiency syndrome AIDS (4) radio detection and ranging radar

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Abbreviations are formed from the initial letters or initial syllables and may be spelled with capital or with lower case letters. Phonologically, the first two examples differ from the last two examples, i.e. in CIA and FBI individual letters/sounds are pronounced, while the abbreviations AIDS and radar are pronounced as whole words. CIA and FBI belong to the group of initialisms and the examples AIDS and radar to the group of acronyms (Stockwell and Minkova, 2005: 7-8). Plag (2003: 127-128) writes that some abbreviations are no longer spelt with capital letters, but with lower case letters, e.g. radar and laser and adds that although such words are acronyms, they are not seen as such by the majority of speakers. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 89) list another group of abbreviations that is a mixture of initialisms and acronyms. They provide the examples VP (Vice-President) and ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps). The examples are pronounced as and rotcy.

Interest groups and other organizations often create acronyms to promote their initiatives, e.g. CARE, which is an acronym for Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (Plag, 2003, 128). Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 9) name such formations reverse acronyms.

4.2.8 Back-formation Back-formation is a word-formation process that has some similarities to clipping. Both processes entail shortening of words. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 88) define back-formation as “the making of a new word from an older word which is mistakenly assumed to be its derivative.” Jackson and Zé Amvela add that the final morpheme in the word is substracted, e.g. the verb to edit is derived from the noun an editor.

A comparison of back-formation and clipping reveals that the reduction of word material is the only commonality between the two. The following examples show the similarities and dissimilarities between the two:

(1) a microphone (n.) a mic (n.) (2) a refrigerator (n.) a fridge (n.) (3) an editor (n.) to edit (v.)

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(4) unruly (adj.) ruly (adj.)

Examples 1 and 2 are produced as a result of clipping, while examples 3 and 4 are products of back-formation. Even though clipping eliminates part of the word, the word class remains unchanged. Back-formation, on the other hand, reduces material from the original word and may change word class, as in the example editor-edit.

According to Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 10), it is difficult to identify examples of back-formation because they are no longer transparent and not many exist.

4.3 Semantic shift The last section on word-formation does not deal with word-formation processes but with how the meaning of a word may be altered over the course of time. The changing of meaning of a lexical unit is called semantic shift. Meyerhoff (2010: 55) defines semantic shift as “incremental changes to the meaning of a word or phrase. Sometimes included within the scope of grammaticisation […] theory, but unlike classic grammaticisation, semantic shift need not entail structural reanalysis of the word/phrase.” According to McFedries (2004: 39), and Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 156) semantic shift is a linguistic term for the narrowing and broadening of word meaning, e.g. the term girl originally meant a child of either sex. The meaning of the term has since been narrowed to only mean female children. At the other end of the spectre, McFedries (2004: 39) names bird as an example of semantic broadening. He writes that the original meaning of bird was a small fowl. Yet, the meaning has since broadened to mean any kind of a winged animal.

Semantic changes are impossible to predict as there are numerous factors that contribute to the semantic shift of a word. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 149) list several reasons why predicting changes in meaning is not feasible. In their view, new words and social conditions can cause certain words to become redundant. Furthermore, due to shifts in attitude some words may rise in social status or become socially unacceptable.

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Words that rise in status undergo the process of amelioration and words that decline in social status undergo the process of pejoration (Stockwell and Minkova, 2005: 156). An example of amelioration is the adjective nice, which used to mean stupid in Middle English (nice, n.d.), but has acquired a positive connotation since then in the sense of kind. The term silly is an example of pejoration. The term used to mean “deserving of pity or sympathy” in Late Middle English (silly, n.d.), while the modern day connotation is negative and means foolish.

There are some words that have both negative and positive connotations depending on the speakers’ attitudes. One such example is the term outsource in the meaning of to “obtain (goods or a service) by contract from an outside supplier” (outsource, n.d.). The term might have a positive connotation for corporate management and a negative one for employees in fear of losing employment.

Certain words may lose their specific meaning. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 154) write about the loss of specificity or over-generalization. They provide the example guy, which originated from the British anarchist Guy Fawkes. The term lost its specificity and now means males of strange appearance. It is commonly used in American English, mostly in informal situations. Since then the meaning has broadened to mean any male and now in plural form guys to any group of people, males or females.

4.4 Dissemination of new words Words are not much different from other products created in our society. They have a structure or a form, they have a meaning or function and they play a role in a society. Depending on their usefulness, some become popular and are used extensively and others fade into obscurity. However, occasionally products need help reaching widespread recognition. Ad agencies, corporations, political and other interest groups spend large amounts of money and pressure to ensure certain products enter people’s consciousness. McFedries (2004: 31-32) characterises the situation best by saying, “Creating new words is easy; getting other people to use them is not.”

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Popular shows, films and songs are watched and listened to by millions. A large speaker base is likely to acquire and disseminate new words and phrases to other speakers. However, the entertainment industry is not the only source of spreading new words. According to McFedries (2004: 35), new Internet technologies such as chat rooms and websites and word-of-mouth may be considered as efficient ways of disseminating new words.

Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have created new virtual communities, where thousands and millions of people of all ages and different social, economic, religious and political backgrounds can instantaneously communicate with each other. Once new words emerge on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites and a few people start using and sharing the new coinages, their spread is extremely rapid, as the Internet eliminates geographical and social barriers among language users.

New words need a substantial amount of exposure to be acquired by the language community. However, exposure and dissemination are not sufficient if new words do not meet certain requirements. New coinages must possess specific characteristics in order to be picked up by speakers. McFedries (2004: 33-34) states that for words to be acquired by language users, they must fill a gap in the language, they must be easy to pronounce, easy to understand and they must be short. He provides examples for each requirement. The word speako means “an error in speaking, especially when dictating to a voice recognition system” (McFedries, 2004: 34). The word is a blend of speak and typo and could become quite popular due to the advent of voice recognition systems such as Apple’s Siri or Google’s voice recognition system. He goes on to explain that words that are difficult to pronounce reduce the word’s word-of-mouth capabilities. McFedries (2004: 33) explains that the word democrazy, which is “a democracy that has absurd or inequitable characteristics or in which senseless or unjust events occur”, is extremely difficult to pronounce because it is impossible to know which syllable is stressed. There are also words that are difficult to understand. It is impossible to guess the meaning of degoo. Only by searching the Internet thoroughly can the meaning be found. It means an expression of disgust or frustration (degoo, n.d.). On the other hand, a word such as democratatorship,

67 which means “a dictatorship that pretends to be a democracy by holding sham or fixed elections” (Word Spy, n.d.), can be guessed by taking the word apart. The word is a blend of democracy and dictatorship, thus providing the meaning of the blend. The last condition that must be met is the length of words. McFedries (2004: 34) explains that “short words are easier to remember than long words, so they’re more likely to appear in articles and pop up in dinner conversations.” McFedries provides two examples, i.e. gynobibliophobia, in the sense of disliking women writers, and gaydar, meaning gays having a sixth sense to identify other gays. It is highly likely that gaydar will become more popular in everyday use because it is much easier to pronounce as well as being much shorter.

When new words meet all the requirements, it is highly likely that they can become part of everyday language vocabulary use. Nevertheless, as language is an ever-changing entity, words which were once considered modern can swiftly be replaced by newer words. It is a process that is in continuous motion, producing diverse and colourful lexical units on a daily basis.

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5 English vocabulary in modern American popular culture The previous sections of this work dealt with theoretical aspects of American culture as well as word-formation and acquisition. Basic concepts were described and explained. In the following sections, new coinages are presented, explained and their usage presented in authentic texts such as newspaper and magazine articles, message boards and social media websites. The linguistic data gathered ranges from the 1990s to the the 2010s. A few words originated or were popularized just before the year 1990; however, their first appearance was in a TV series that ran well into the 1990s. The lexical units presented in this thesis were randomly selected to capture the diversity of media. The process of selection entailed watching TV series, listening to different genres of music, reading various newspapers, analysing corpora and searching the Internet to find new words that have gained popularity through mainstream media. An excellent source of new lexical data has been the website Word Spy (n.d.), run by Paul McFedries. One can subscribe to the website’s weekly newsletter and receive information on new undocumented words.

The linguistic data consists of words that have been created in the last two decades and as a result of widespread use have been included in various dictionaries. There are also words that have become popular, but have not been included in any dictionaries. A few words have been in use for decades or even a century, but they have undergone semantic shift to form a completely new lexeme. Some words have become popular and their use increased as a result of being used in a popular television series or song.

Words have been divided into different categories according to their origin. These categories include films and television, music, social media, politics, fashion, and miscellaneous. In some cases, it is difficult to determine under which medium the word should be categorized, e.g. the word binge-watching was made possible as a result of advancing Internet technology and the rise of Internet streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. However, the term in its semantic core applies to watching films and TV series. In such borderline cases, a decision needed to be made to include them under a single category. A note is made every time borderline cases are presented. There are many borderline cases, as American

69 popular culture is an interconnection of diverse media all complimenting each other.

5.1 Films and TV series The first section of newly created words deals with the medium of films and TV series. The section is divided into two parts, one dealing with film words and the other with television words, which is further subdivided into individual shows. The words are listed in alphabetical order in the category of films, while television words are listed under their respective television series usage. As stated, a detailed explanation of the word’s word class, word-formation process, origin if possible, and its meaning and authentic use are provided.

5.1.1 Films Table 1 lists the words that are presented in this section.

order presented words order presented words 1. bucket list 6. fetch 2. catfish 7. mini-me 3. chick flick 8. not! 4. 9. shart 5. derp 10. skadoosh

Table 1: Words associated with films The first example in the category of films is the term bucket list. The term comes from the phrase kick the bucket, which means to die, and was popularized by the 2007 film The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman (Greisman et al., 2007). The noun is a compound of bucket and list. The lexeme bucket list means a list of things one wishes to accomplish before one dies. The term may be found in the online editions of Merriam-Webster as well as the Oxford Dictionaries.

The concept of a bucket list has become very popular, with many people seizing the opportunity to offer services of this nature. There are many websites that offer advice on what to do and visit before one dies. Some websites specialise in the

70 rich and famous and others for non-celebrities. One such example is the website Bucketlist (n.d.), which brings people together in fulfilling their lifetime dreams.

The term may be found in an article of The New Yorker written by Rebecca Mead (2014):

Millions have watched a short video of Robin Williams sending greetings to a twenty-one-year-old New Zealand woman with terminal cancer, whose bucket list reportedly included not just the wish to meet the actor but the aspiration of living long enough to see her infant daughter’s first birthday.

Films and TV series can often mirror social aspects of societies. One such example is the 2010 film Catfish (IMDB, n.d.) and the 2012 television series Catfish: The TV Show (IMDB, n.d.). The original meaning of the word catfish is that of a freshwater fish. During the course of the film and the subsequent television series, the word catfish acquired a new meaning. According to Merriam-Webster (catish, n.d.), catfish is “a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes.” The Oxford Dictionaries (catfish, n.d.) lists catfish as a verb and not a noun. The dictionary defines the verb as to “lure (someone) into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona.” Catfish is a common word, especially in the age of social networking and people seeking notoriety. It is not uncommon for celebrities to become victims of catfish. The actor Thomas Gibson was one of those victims, as Molly McHugh (2013) writes that “mere months since Manti Te’o found himself outed for his online and very fake relationship, Criminal Minds and Dharma & Greg star Thomas Gibson has also found himself the victim of a catfish hoax.”

The term chick flick is often a dreaded word among the male population. Most men watch chick flicks solely for the purposes of getting closer to their soon-to-be partners. The term is a reaction to all the films which deal with love, feelings, friendship and happy endings, such as When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993). Oxford Dictionaries (chick flick, n.d.) defines chick flick as “a film which appeals to young women.” Oxford Dictionaries labels the term as an

71 informal and a derogatory term. Merriam-Webster (chick flick, n.d.) dates the first known use to 1988, while Word Spy (Word Spy, n.d.) dates it to 1992. Chick flick is a nominal compound belonging to the group of endocentric compounds. The term is also constructed by means of reduplication where both parts of the compound contribute to the overall meaning of the whole compound. The constituent parts chick and flick are informal terms referring to young attractive women and movies. An article in Cosmopolitan delves into the male psyche to find out what frightens men in relationships:

For some girls, a chick flick or massage gets them in the mood, but my girl always wants to do it after she's argued with her controlling mom. I'm sure she's trying to work off stress or feel needed, but I feel really strange about it. (Murphy, 2009)

Another term that was popularized as a result of being used in films and television series is the noun cougar. Originally, in North American, the term cougar is used to refer to a puma. However, the meaning has been broadened to mean “an older woman seeking a sexual relationship with a younger man” (cougar, n.d.a). The term is normally used in informal situations. The origin of the meaning of an older woman is uncertain. The term was popularized by the film Cougar Club (2007) and the sitcom Cougar Town (2009-2015). However, the Urban Dictionary has an entry that dates to November 2003 in the sense of an older woman who prefers younger men (cougar, n.d.b). An example of the new meaning is found in an article written by Dolores Puterbaugh (2010) in the USA Today:

The classic stereotype of the man in midlife crisis, sporting a comb- over, expensive car, and a taste for women his daughter's age has been nudged aside in the media by the “cougar”: the middle-aged woman prowling for men her son's age.

The successful television series South Park (1997- ) popularized the term derp. Stefan Becket (2013) of the New York analyses the origin of the term. He writes that the term originated in the film BASEketball (1998) starring Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park (1997- ). The term may be used either as an interjection or as a noun according to Oxford Dictionaries (derp, n.d.). As an

72 interjection the term signifies meaningless and stupid speech, while as a noun it means foolishness or stupidity. Oxford Dictionaries states that the term is likely an alteration of dur and duh. According to Stefan Becket (Becket, 2013), there are also possible derivatives of the interjection such as the adjective derpy and the nouns derptitude and derpdom.

The term has also become popular among the political establishment. A Salon article on the topic of political conservatism and racism includes the noun derptitude:

Tuesday night, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R) appeared at a fundraiser for the County Republicans and, according to Rebecca Leber at the New Republic, demonstrated just how strongly the Republican field of presidential candidates has embraced “derpitude” as a guiding principle. (Kaufman, 2015)

The film Mean Girls (2004) has in the years following its release acquired a cult following. One of the reasons for its popularity might be the use of the word fetch. Merriam-Webster lists the term as a verb and a noun. Merriam-Webster defines the verb fetch as “to go or come after and bring or take back” and the noun fetch as a trick (fetch, n.d.). However, the term has undergone a semantic shift, i.e. acquiring a new sense. In the film, the lexeme fetch is used in the sense of cool, awesome and stylish, i.e. the lexeme is used as an adjective. The lexeme has gained such prominence that it was nominated for one of the most useful words of 2004 by the (American Dialect Society, 2005). Politicians often use popular culture references to appeal to a younger demographic. An article in The Huffington Post writes on the topic using phrases from the film Mean Girls. The journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed (2014) writes, “tell us whether you think Braley's new tactic is fetch -- or if you don't know whether he even goes here -- in the comments section below.”

One of the most popular comedies of the late 1990s and the early 2000s was the Austin Powers trilogy. The main antagonist in the films was a character by the name of Dr. Evil played by Mike Myers. In the second film of the series Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Dr. Evil gets a clone of himself which

73 is only one-eighth of his size. The small version of Dr. Evil is called mini-me. The word is constructed from the prefix mini- and the personal pronoun me to form the derivative mini-me. The term is not listed in Merriam-Webster dictionary, but has an entry in Oxford Dictionaries. The lexeme means “a person closely resembling a smaller or younger version of another” (mini-me, n.d.). There are also 84 entries of it in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. One example of the noun mini-me is found in an article written by David Segal (2002) in The Washington Post:

For a lot of the album, there's barely any strumming at all. On Saturday night, the guitarists reasserted themselves. Occasionally you could actually hear Lofgren, who, by the way, looks more like Springsteen's Mini-Me every year. Little Stevie got to noodle and mug with a mandolin. Most of the finest solos belonged to Springsteen, though.

It is interesting to find words that are normally used in informal language in distinguished newspapers such as The Washington Post. It is a sign of changing times, where every demographic group counts in order to sustain a feasible business model.

Mike Myers and Dana Carvey’s portrayals of twenty-something goofballs, Wayne and Garth, living in their parents’ basement in Saturday Night Live (1975- ) and in the films Wayne’s World (1992) and Wayne’s World 2 (1993) were enormously popular in the early 1990s. Their use of the adverb not! at the end of a sentence to negate the whole meaning of the sentence was among the reasons for their popularity. It was also voted as 1992 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (All of…, n.d.). However, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey are not the originators of such use. According to Oxford Dictionaries (not, n.d.), the use of not to negate the statement it follows may be traced to the late 19th century. They are only responsible for the rise in its popularity. In the film Wayne’s World (1992), Wayne describes an invention as “Wow! What a totally amazing excellent discovery...not!” The adverb not! in the sense of negating the previous meaning is normally used humorously as in the example That was so much fun…not!.

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There are also examples that combine popular culture and biology or as in the following example, basic human functions. The lexeme shart is a blend of shit and fart and is self-explanatory from the both constituent parts of the blend. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines the verb as “to defecate slightly while passing intestinal gas” (shart, 2015). The origin of the word is uncertain, however, the term gained popularity in the film Along Came Polly (2004). There is an entry on Urban Dictionary that precedes the use in the film Along Came Polly. A user by the name of Foof (2003) provided the definition for shart on 27 March 2003. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, shart is a vulgar slang term. There are many examples of shart found on the Internet, mostly in blogs and other social media. One such example is by blogger Mike Gellman (2011). He describes the events of his misfortune in an article for The Huffington Post:

The next day, in my car for the bird pick-up, I noticed a familiar grumbling in my belly. In the past, this grumbling had signaled that I had to release some gas. Subsequently, I did what I had always done in that situation -- I tightened my stomach muscles, relaxed my sphincter, and flatulated. Unfortunately, this was no normal flatulence. It was one with a partner, a very determined, wet, smelly partner. I sharted.

In the animated film Kung Fu Panda (2008), the main character Po, which is voiced by Jack Black, often utters the word skadoosh. The interjection is analogous to the onomatopoetic sounding whoosh. There are various meanings attached to the neologism. One common denominator is the sound one makes just before performing a physical act with their finger. There are a few spelling variations, as the word may be spelled skadoosh, skidoosh or even squadoosh. The reason for this confusion is the absence of a written record. The word was uttered in the film, but the spelling was never fully explained. Nevertheless, the word gained mainstream popularity in the summer of 2008 due to the film’s success. It was also nominated as one of the most creative words of 2008 by the American Dialect Society (2009).

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An article written by Ben Zimmer (2008) explores the idea of skadoosh having a lasting impact on the English language. He writes that skadoosh upholds the American tradition of using funny words for quick and sudden movements. He concludes that “sometimes a momentary ad-lib can encompass a world of linguistic history.” The word may be found on T-shirts, cups and mugs, memes (i.e. images or videos that usually have humorous texts written on them and are spread on the Internet) and is even used as a name for computer apps.

There is an article in The Washington Post titled “Dude, That’s So Skidoosh” (2008). The word is written as skidoosh and not skadoosh, which is usually seen as the preferred way of spelling if a Google search is any indication. There is a ten-to-one ratio in favour of skadoosh according to a Google search of skidoosh and skadoosh, signifying a probable scenario where skadoosh might become the predominant way of spelling.

5.1.2 TV series The following section is dedicated to TV series and the creation and popularization of words in American television series. Some television series, such as Seinfeld, are known to have produced many new terms and popularized previously created ones. Unlike the previous section, where words were categorized alphabetically, this section lists words according to the series in which they first appeared. Table 2 lists the words presented. The presentation of words begins with perhaps the most influential American TV series of the 1990s, Seinfeld.

TV series order presented words TV series order presented words Seinfeld 1. anti-dentite Friends (p. 1. friend zone (p. 79) 2. double-dip 88) 2. the Rachel 3. close talker 4. 5. high talker 6. hipster doofus 7. jimmy legs

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8. kavorka 9. long talker 10. low talker 11. man hands 12. mimbo 13. regift 14. degift 15. schmoopy 16. spongeworthy 17. yada yada

TV Series order presented TV series order presented words words

How I Met 1. awsful The Colbert 1. eneagled Your 2. Desperation Day Report (p. 2. engayify Mother (p. 3. GCWOK 97) 3. freem 91) 4. insanulous 4. mantasy 5. lawyer 5. truthiness 6. legendary, legen- 6. wikiality wait for it-dary 7. Mellencamp 8. revertigo 9. 10. steak sauce 11. the possimpible

TV series order presented TV series order presented words words Saturday 1. schwing Star Trek: 1. the Borg Night Live 2. strategery The Next 2. holodeck (p. 100) Generation 3. nanites

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(p. 101) TV series order presented TV series order presented words words World 1. screwjob The Oprah 1. aha moment Wrestling 2. smackdown Winfrey 2. Oprahesque Entertain Show (p. ment (p. 105) 103) TV series order presented TV series order presented words words The 1. cromulent Other TV 1. bridezilla Simpsons 2. embiggen series (p. 2. chill (p. 106) 107) 3. dramality 4. extreme makeover 5. Gleek 6. MacGyver 7. man cave 8. pimp my ride 9. punk’d 10. sexytime 11. sideboob 12. Springeresque 13. warrior princess 14. watercooler moments 15. webisode 16. webcast

Table 2: Words associated with TV series

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5.1.2.1 Seinfeld Seinfeld was and still is a hugely successful show that was created by comedians and (IMDB, n.d.). It ran for nine seasons, from 1989- 1998, and became a cultural phenomenon that made characters Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine cultural icons. What helped make the show so popular were the recurring characters, such as Jerry’s neighbour , George’s parents Estelle and Frank Costanza and other colourful guest stars. The show created some of the most memorable moments on American television. Episodes such as “The Contest” and “” are part of American folklore. One part of the success can be attributed to the creation of hilarious words and phrases. There are not many Americans that do not know the words yada yada or spongeworthy. This chapter will present the words which originated in Seinfeld.

One of the newly created words appeared in the episode “Yada Yada”, which aired on 24 April 1997. The episode was written by Jill Franklyn and Peter Mehlman (Franklyn, Mehlman and Ackerman, 1997). Peters (2007: 114) defines the term anti-dentite in his book by saying “an anti-dentite is like an anti-semite, if you replaced the with dentists.” The analysis shows that the word anti- dentite came about by the process of analogy. However, there are two possibilities as to how the word might have been created. The simplest is that the whole word is an analogy of anti-semite. There is also the possibility that dentite is modelled after semite. The resulting word dentite has undergone the process of affixation and acquired the prefix anti- to form the term anti-dentite. It is unclear which explanation is more likely. Nevertheless, there is no entry of dentite in any reputable dictionary. Yet, the word anti-dentite may be found in news and opinion websites such as the The Daily Caller. In an article found in The Daily Caller, former US vice-presidential candidate comments on anonymous sources by saying “ʻI suppose I could play their immature, unprofessional, waste- of-time game, too, by claiming these reporters and politicos are homophobe, child molesting, tax evading, anti-dentite, puppy-kicking, chain smoking porn producers…ʼ” (Strong, 2010).

Many popular words and phrases in Seinfeld describe social situations and a lack of social aptitude by the main characters. One of the most interesting is the act of

79 double-dipping. In the episode “” (Mehlman and Cherones, 1993), George decides to double-dip a chip, causing a chain of violent events at a funeral reception. To double-dip is to take a chip, dip it into a bowl of sauce, eat it and dip again using the same chip. Such behaviour is normally frowned upon. The lexeme double-dip is a verbal compound created from the adjective double and the verb dip and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. In addition, the nominal suffix –ing may be added to double-dip to form the deverbal derivative double- dipping. The episode was written by Peter Mehlman and aired on 25 February 1993 (Mehlman and Cherones, 1993). There has been a lot of speculation as to whether double-dipping is a serious health risk. Discovery Channel (Does double- dipping…, n.d.) has conducted research of their own and they have concluded that “ is that most dips — store-bought or homemade — already contain bacteria. Double-dipping adds only a few more microbes than the multitude swimming in your salsa to begin with.” Yet, there is also evidence that double- dipping does produce a substantial amount of bacteria transfer. An article in The New York Times writes about research conducted by a microbiologist:

Professor Dawson said that Timmy who got into a fight with George about the double-dipping was essentially correct. “‘The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.’” (McGee, 2008)

It is only appropriate that there are also double-dippers. In the article by Harrold McGee (2008), Peter Mehlman recounts his encounter with a double-dipper and the trouble he got in when he got caught double-dipping. McGee (2008) writes “at the party, he [Mehlman] had sympathized with the double dipper.”

Everyone has probably at some point in their life encountered a close talker. The meaning of the word may be deduced by the constituent parts of this compound noun. A close talker is a person who stands too close to the person he/she is speaking to. The noun close talker is a compound of the adjective close and the noun talker, which in itself is a derivate of the verb talk and the suffix –er. The

80 term close talker belongs to the group of endocentric compounds, as the semantic head is inside the compound, thus the left hand member modifies the semantic head of the compound. Hence, close talker is a kind of person who stands too close to another person while speaking. The term was heard in the episode “”, which was written by Tom Gammill, Max Pross, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, and which aired on 28 April 1994 (Gammill et al., 1994). The character of the close talker is portrayed by the actor Judge Reinhold. Such behaviour might be considered peculiar, rude and impolite. There was even research done on the topic. Andrew Moseman (2009) writes:

Remember the Seinfeld episode featuring the "close-talker," an overly pleasant fellow named Aaron (played by Judge Reinhold) who stands just a little too close to people when he's talking to them? If you thought someone must have had brain damage to be so nice, perhaps you weren't far off: a new study out of Caltech associates close-talking with damage to a specific region of the brain.

In the blog written by Andrew Moseman, one can also find close-talking. The gerund close-talking is a synthetic compound and constructed in the same manner as close talker. The suffix -ing is attached to the second element in the compound to form close-talking.

One of the most colourful characters of the series is ’s father Frank played by (Berg et al., 1997). The episode “” revealed that the Costanzas do not celebrate Christmas, but rather Festivus. The holiday is best described by Peters (2007: 118), who states that the Frank Costanza-created holiday, celebrated on 23 December, “is a non-commercial, non- religious, somewhat barbaric alternative to Christmas: good will towards all, holiday cheer, and the Christmas tree are replaced with a ritualistic airing of grievances, Freudian feats of strength and an aluminium pole.” The episode originally aired on 18 December 1997 and was written by Jeff Schaffer, and Dan O’Keefe. Dan O’Keefe’s father actually invented the mock holiday in the 1960s (Happy Festivus, n.d.). There are several references in popular cultural and even actual books on the topic of this mock holiday. Allen Salkin wrote the book

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Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of US (Salkin, 2005). In addition to books, there is a website that is dedicated solely to Festivus. Everything one needs to know about the holiday can be found on www.festivusweb.com. There are several explanations as to the structure of this word. The first possibility is that the term Festivus is a derivative of the adjective festive and the Latin suffix –ivus. Another possibility could be that the term is a loanword from Latin festivus. The modern English term festive has its origins in the 17th century and is derived from the Latin festivus (festive, n.d.).

Close talkers are not the only socially awkward people in our society. There are people who have a high-pitched voice. High talker is the term that is used for such people. Their voice resembles that of women. The word is used in “” (Gammill, Pross and Ackerman, 1994), which aired on 6 October 1994. The episode was written by Tom Gammill and Max Pross. However, the term high talker can cause some confusion, as witnessed in the episode where the word high talker was confused with the meaning of loud talker. The compound noun high talker is created in the same manner as the compound noun close talker. Both are endocentric nominal compounds that have a derivate as its semantic head. One can find several online blogs where differences between fast, high, close and low talkers are discussed. On one such blog, high talkers are described as “another species altogether. And any one of us can become one temporarily. The main precursor to the high talker is anxiety. The high is not in volume but in pitch” (thisismeorisit, 2014).

Hipster doofus is another term that originated in Seinfeld. It first appeared in the episode “”, where the character Kramer is described as a hipster doofus. The episode aired on 13 May 1993 and was written by Larry David (David and Cherones, 1993a). The top definition on Urban Dictionary is provided by HannahB (2006). She writes that hipster doofus is “someone who has taken being hip and unique to an extreme and therefore worn the ʻcoolʼ out of the hip.” Hipster doofus is a nominal compound constructed from two nouns, hipster and doofus. The compound belongs to the group of copulative compounds, as both constituent parts equally define the meaning of the compound, thus in the case of the character Kramer, he is both a hipster and a doofus. The term is especially

82 popular among social media users. One such user complains about an article on a music website saying “the only reason I read this hipster doofus article is because Britt Adair is a nice person” (LarryDavid, 2014).

The next term jimmy legs or Jimmy Legs is an actual medical condition. The medical term for jimmy legs is restless legs syndrome or RLS. The condition may be described “as uncontrollable urges to move the limbs in order to stop uncomfortable, painful or odd sensations in the body, most commonly in the legs” (Restless legs syndrome, n.d.). The condition as well as the term became popularized in the episode “The Money” written by Peter Mehlman. The episode aired on 16 January 1997 (Mehlman and Ackerman, 1997). The nominal compound jimmy legs belongs to the group of exocentric compounds, as the semantic head is outside the compound, i.e. jimmy legs does not refer to legs, but to a medical condition. It is unknown how the term was created, but the verb jimmy means to move a crowbar forcefully in an effort to open something (jimmy, n.d.). This could be a possible explanation for the structure of the term jimmy legs. An article in USA Today discusses the term jimmy legs claiming that “scientists have linked certain genes to restless legs syndrome, suggesting the twitching condition described as ʻjimmy legsʼ in a ʻSeinfeldʼ episode is biologically based and not an imaginary disorder” (Stobbe, 2007).

Seinfeld has therefore not influenced only popular culture, but also medical science. The show has also touched on the topic of religion. In the episode titled “The Conversion”, it is revealed that the character Kramer is possessed by kavorka. The word supposedly comes from the Latvian-Orthodox Church and means the lure of the animal. Peters (2007: 126) describes this phenomenon as “a sexual power so strong that even nuns must surrender to the lusty, raw, charismatic, animal-magnetic mojo.” The origin of the word is unclear. Kavorka is probably a made up word intended for comic purposes. The episode was written by Bruce Kirschbaum and aired on 16 December 1993 (Kirschbaum and Cherones, 1993). Kavorka is mostly found in popular mainstream media and among message board users. An online article published in Entertainment Weekly written by Jeff Labrecque (2009) questions whether the actor Nicholas Cage has kavorka because his female co-stars are usually young attractive women.

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There are all kinds of strange but lovable characters in the show, from close talkers to high talkers. Therefore, it must come as no surprise that there are also long talkers. Long talker is a person who cannot shut up, usually talking about him/herself or his/her day. Long talkers are usually oblivious to what their actions are causing their listeners. A long talker appears in the episode “”, which aired on 13 October 1994 and was written by Peter Mehlman (Mehlman and Ackerman, 1994). The noun long talker is an endocentric compound constructed from the adjective long and the noun talker. On a website called HubPages, where users can write articles, reviews and their opinions, a user by the name of Pete Fanning (2012) shares his thoughts on long talkers by saying “we've all been there. At work, a social function, or it could be the grocery store, you turn and Well Heyyyy!! How are youuuu??? Crap! These long talkers are everywhere.” He continues by giving advice on how to get away from them. His ideas range from using the old cell phone trick to pretending that you did not see them or yelling fire (Fanning, 2012).

To make the list of talkers complete, there is one more talker, the low talker. The meaning of the term can be understood quite easily. Low talker is a person who speaks so quietly that it is difficult to understand them. Usually one just nods in agreement. Similar to all the compounds with talker in the role of a semantic head, the nominal compound low talker belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. A low talker appears in one of Seinfeld’s most popular episodes “”. Not surprisingly, it was written by the co-creator himself, Larry David. The episode aired on 23 September 1993 (David and Cherones, 1993b). Writer Jamie Todd Rubin describes in his blog how he encountered a low talker at the hairdresser’s. He writes, “my hair turned out just fine, but the person cutting it was a low-talker. And I mean a really low-talker. In fact, during the entire time she was cutting my hair, I understood exactly two things that she said” (Rubin, 2006).

There are many examples in Seinfeld where the word man is used as part of a compound or blend. One such example is man hands. The meaning is self- explanatory: to have hands like a man. However, the show adds a twist to the meaning. Man hands need to be on a woman. The term man hands is a nominal

84 compound and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. The main character Jerry goes on a date with a woman who has man hands. The episode titled “The Jerry” was written by and originally aired on 3 October 1996 (Mandel and Ackerman, 1996). The term is relatively popular on message boards. There was a discussion on the message board of The Straight Dope, an online question-and-answer newspaper column published in the Chicago Reader, regarding the existence of man hands. A member of the message board by the name of xizor (2002) claims “I met Marina Sertis (Deanna Troi from ST:TNG) and I would classify her as having man hands.” While the user Ringo (2002) states that “one of the most stunningly attractive women I've known had ʻman handsʼ. He goes on by saying “[…] she had man hands. And she had man feet. And man problems.”

One of the recurring themes of the show was Elaine’s boyfriend-of-the-week. In the episode named “”, Elaine dates a man named Tony, who according to Jerry is a male bimbo or mimbo. The episode was written by and aired on 6 January 1994 (Charles and Cherones, 1994). While many of the new words created or popularized in Seinfeld are compounds, mimbo is one of the few examples that is considered a blend, formed from male and bimbo. It is not surprising that the word can be found on a daytime talk show and soap opera news blog Daytime Confidential. The readers of the news blog are asked “who do you consider to be the show’s biggest mimbo (see Seinfeld), Ridge, Eric or Nick? Each could lay (all puns intended) claim to the dubious title” (Kerr, 2008).

The following term is especially popular among those who are not satisfied with the presents they receive and wish to regift them as soon as possible. Peters (2007: 136) defines the verb as “to scavenge through the lamest gifts you’ve received, slap on some new wrapping, and give it to someone else.” Originally, in the episode “” the verb is used as a noun regifter, but is later changed to a verb by George.

“George: Well, didn't he regift the label maker?

Jerry: Possibly.

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George: Well, if he can regift, why can't you degift?” (Berg, Schaffer and Ackerman, 1995)

As seen from the excerpt, there is also degift, as in to take back a present that was given to someone else. Both verbs regift and degift are derivatives of the verb gift. They are created by attaching the prefixes re- and de- to the base of the derivate. The episode was written by Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer and aired on 19 January 1995 (Berg, Schaffer and Ackerman, 1995). There are numerous examples on regifting in English. The concept of regifting usually appears around holiday season, as there are many newspaper articles on the topic of regifting. In an online article written by Farnoosh Torabi (2011), she gives advice when to regift and when not to. She admits to “occasionally regifting bottles of wine or champagne, but that's pretty much where I draw the line” (Torabi, 2011). In addition to articles, there are also books written on this topic, such as Barbara Bitela’s The Art of Regifting: Your ABC's Guide to Regifting, the Do's And Don'ts, Urban Legends And Folk Lore (Bitela, 2006).

There are many terms of endearment such as honey bunny or cuddly-wuddly. It is therefore only fitting that one can find terms of endearment such as schmoopy in Seinfeld. The term may be heard in one of the most popular episodes “The Soup Nazi”. The word is used with such conviction that it becomes an annoying term during the course of the episode. This is most obvious when George recalls the conversation between Jerry and his girlfriend.

“GEORGE: I had to listen to a five minute discussion on which one is actually called schmoopy” (Feresten and Ackerman, 1995).

The word schmoopy can be used as a noun or an adjective. Grant Barrett (2006b: 304) describes the noun schmoopiness in The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English as “behaviour that is excessively cutesy, precious, or adoring.” Although the term exhibits orthographic and phonological characteristics of Yiddish words, namely the combination of letters sch, Barrett (2006b: 304) states that there is no evidence that the word belongs to Yiddish origin. It is possible that the word is an alteration of schmooze and its derivatives schmoozy and schmooziness. However, it is difficult to analyse the word-formation process of the word, as the creators of

86 schmoopy have not specified the origin and the process behind the creation of the term. Yet, Wiktionary analyses the term as a combination of schmoop and the suffix –y (schmoopy, n.d.). It defines schmoop (schmoop, n.d.) as “fan fiction, or part of fan fiction, which is sweetly romantic or cute, usually to a degree considered maudlin.” There is a semantic connection between shmoop as romantic fan fiction and schmoopy as a term of endearment. Due to the unreliability of the source, the lack of other examples of schmoop or shmoop in the British National Corpus or the Corpus of Historical American English and the single example in the Corpus of American Contemporary English dating to 2005, it is difficult to determine whether schmoopy is constructed from schmoop and the suffix –y or shmoop is created as a result of back-formation from schmoopy. However, five examples of schmoopy or shmoopy occur in the Corpus of American Contemporary English from as early as 1997, thus making it a likely candidate for the original meaning and structure.

This episode was written by Spike Feresten and aired on 2 November 1995 (Feresten and Ackerman, 1995). It is a cultural phenomenon not because of the word schmoopy, but because of the unforgettable character The Soup Nazi and his catchphrase No soup for you! An article by Bella DePaulo (2011) in The Huffington Post examines people’s schmoopiness on Facebook. According to one status update there, “David is having a hard time waking up and misses his schmoopy” (DePaulo, 2011).

To say that characters had quite a few sexual partners on the show would be an understatement to say the least. In the episode “”, Elaine contemplates whether her boyfriend is spongeworthy. In the episode, Elaine finds out that her favourite contraceptive the Today Sponge is taken off the market and she needs to stock up. However, she only acquires a limited number of sponges and has to preserve them, only to use them if her boyfriend is spongeworthy. A user by the name of jonathan keith sheriff defines the adjective in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of New Words and Slang (jonathan, 2005) as “‘someone of immaculate physical condition and appeal who is worthy of a sponge or very rare sexual contraceptive device which was discontinued’”. The word is an adjectival compound consisting of the noun sponge and the adjective worthy. The compound

87 belongs to the group of exocentric compounds, as it applies to a person’s sexual attractiveness. This episode is one the most popular of the show; it aired on 7 December 1995 and was written by Peter Mehlman (Mehlman and Ackerman, 1995). An online article in USA Today describes the joy the Today Sponge brought to women after it came back to the market. “Marisa Dawson is delighted to say she has had many ʻspongeworthyʼ moments in the year since the Today birth-control sponge came back onto the market by way of Canada” (Sponge maker…, 2004).

Even though, according to Oxford English Dictionary (yada yada, n.d.c), the next word has its origins in the 1940s, it became popular through the series. The interjection yada yada is one of those words which is most often associated with Seinfeld. According to Merriam-Webster (yada yada, n.d.a), the word is defined as “boring or empty talk […] often used interjectionally especially in recounting words regarded as too dull or predictable to be worth repeating”. The word is used as an interjection and a noun. Oxford Dictionaries defines it as both an interjection and a noun, while Merriam-Webster defines the word as a noun. There are alternative ways of spelling the word, from yaddah yaddah to yatta yatta. According to Oxford Dictionaries (yada yada, n.d.b.), the term yada yada is likely influenced by yatter and is created by way of reduplication. The term appeared in “”, which was written by Jill Franklyn and Peter Mehlman, and which aired on 24 April 1997 (Franklyn, Mehlman and Ackerman, 1997). A Google search of yada yada provides more than 54 million results, which is a testament to the word’s popularity. There are countless examples of authentic use. One of the better ones is by a psychiatry resident describing her life “I graduated with a BS in biology and minor in chemistry. During this time, I met my husband in a Spanish class I took on a whim, got married…yada, yada” (Thomas-Fannin, n.d.).

5.1.2.2 Friends Arguably the second most popular series on American television in the 1990s was the sitcom Friends. The series was created by David Crane and Marta Kaufmann

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(IMDB, n.d.) and ran for 10 seasons from 1994 until 2004. The series chronicles the adventures of six friends in their twenties, growing up and spending their time drinking coffee at Central Perk. The actors who portrayed the main characters Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Joey and Chandler became household names in the entertainment business. The main theme of the show was built around the relationship between Rachel and Ross and their recurring on-again-off-again relationship.

Themes of romantic and platonic relationships are explored in many episodes, which is why it is not surprising that new lexical items dealing with such relationships were created. Friend zone is quite possibly the most influential term that has been popularized in the sitcom. Oxford Dictionaries (friend zone, n.d.) explains the term as “a situation in which a friendship exists between two people, one of whom has an unreciprocated romantic or sexual interest in the other.” The term is a nominal compound and belongs to the group of exocentric compounds, as the term does not apply to a zone where friends meet or a zone of friends, but a sexless situation one gets into if he/she does not play her cards right with the opposite sex. The term first appeared in the episode titled “The One with the Blackout”, which was written by Jeff Astrof and Mike Sikowitz, and which aired on 3 November 1994 (Astrof, Sikowitz and Burrows, 1994). The term was used as a title for an MTV series Friendzone (Friendzone, n.d.). Originally, the term was used as a noun in a conversation between the characters Joey and Ross:

“Joey: Because you waited too long to make your move, and now you're in the friend zone” (Astrof, Sikowitz and Burrows, 1994).

However, the term can also be used as a verb as evidenced by the following examples. A user on the Scarleteen website asks for some advice:

I was friendzoned and things are kinda awkward. I have known this girl for 4 years now, and I am in love with her […] I know it's hard to get out of that friend zone thing, but I would appreciate any help you can give me. (Angelscar, 2013)

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There are three ways of spelling the compound, i.e. the compound may be open, closed or hyphenated. In this instance, the term is used as a verb and a noun. Another Internet user asks for similar advice but hyphenates the verb “I am in love with my best friend but she friend-zoned me. Still I meet her daily and I am nice to her in hopes that she would see my love and sacrifice. Am I doing right?” (I am in love with my best friend…, n.d.)

Jennifer Aniston’s character Rachel was famous for having different hairstyles during the course of the series. One of her hairstyles even acquired mainstream attention and was appropriately dubbed the Rachel. This eponymous term may be described as a medium-length layered haircut. The haircut can be seen in the first two seasons of Friends. The Rachel has maintained at least partial popularity to this day in great part due to younger generations of female celebrities emulating Jennifer Aniston’s 90s hairstyle. An article in People magazine investigates actor- singer Selena Gomez and her new hairstyle:

We’ve been wondering for some time about the mysterious BFF-ship between Selena Gomez and Jennifer Aniston. They’ve been posing for cozy pics at parties and snuggling up at the Golden Globes. And now that we’ve seen Selena Gomez’s new haircut, we wonder if she was just getting close to the Cake star to get all her hair’s secrets — since she seems to be rocking The Rachel. (Apatoff, 2015)

The comedian Jimmy Kimmel performed at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2012. Part of his monologue was dedicated to Rachel Maddow of the MSNBC. He said that Rachel Maddow “is the best- selling author. And yet somehow she still manages to find time to cut her own hair. (LAUGHTER) KIMMEL: The Rachel was a very different hairstyle when Jennifer Anniston had it” (Kimmel, 2012). Kimmel cleverly compares the haircut of Jennifer Aniston aka Rachel in Friends and Rachel Maddow for comic effect.

Friends is a very productive television series with regard to word-formation. There are many neologisms that can be found on the show. Words and phrases such as Alanness, divorcer, face ass, French it up, I’m-one-of-you boss, kissee, mother kisser, pain-in-the-ass stuff and manny are used in the series. However,

90 these words never acquired mainstream popularity, being only used among Friends’ fans.

5.1.2.3 How I Met Your Mother One of the more popular sitcoms was also How I Met Your Mother, which was created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and aired from 2005 to 2014 (IMDB, n.d.). It is based around the characters Ted, Marshall, Barney, Lilly and Robin. What makes this show somewhat unusual is the fact that it has a narrator, future Ted. He is describing the events that led him to meeting the mother of their children, while his daughter and son are reluctantly listening to his stories. The series is known for producing new and imaginative words and phrases. The most word-productive character is the lovable Barney with his blog and bro code.

One of his many inventive and humorous coinages is the word awsful. The adjective is a blend of awesome and awful. The character Barney is known to blend words with opposite meanings. The term appeared in the episode called “Benefits”, which aired on 12 January 2009, and which was written by Kourtney Kang (Kang and Fryman, 2009). It is used to describe something which brings you joy and happiness, but which you want to portray as something bad. There is a semantic shift as well as a change in connotation mid-word. One starts the word by expressing their true feelings about something, but masks them in the final part of the word, hence the word acquires a pejorative connotation. The word is mostly used on message boards and social media. One such example includes a forum post on the gaming website Steam. A user by the name of HeatBlade (2014) asks “is there a way to repair that god awsful big hole in the wall southeast in your house? Giant black dogs just love wandering inside that hole into my house every night and murder me...” The user is amazed at the big hole in the wall, but at the same time expresses frustration at being murdered every night because of the hole.

Much of the hilarity found in the series can be attributed to the character Barney and his never-ending quest for new sexual partners who must never be over the age of thirty. While such behaviour may be described as a psychological disorder,

91 it nevertheless produces many comic situations in the series. He goes to great lengths to get women to have with him. One such scheme is Desperation Day. Desperation Day is celebrated on 13 February, a day before Valentine’s Day. According to Barney, this is the best day of the year for picking up single women to have sex with. The term was used in the episode “Desperation Day”, which was written by Tami Sagher and which quite fittingly aired on 14 February 2011 (Sagher and Fryman, 2011). The term is a nominal compound and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. The term Desperation Day can mostly be found on blogs and other websites dealing with Valentine’s Day and things connected with love, romance and sexual relationships. One such example is the blog Dating Life. The author of the blog describes her plans for Desperation Day:

So this year, rather than sitting around moping and wallowing in self- pity at the fact that I am single, I am embracing the greeting card holiday. I will be embarking on a limo bus tour to 3 different wineries with 8 of my closest friends, on February 12th, the day prior to “Desperation Day”. Let the drunken debauchery ensue! Then, I plan to take full advantage of “Desperation Day”… now to just find myself an unsuspecting, willing victim. (February Means…, 2012)

In the episode “Everything Must Go”, written by Jonathan Groff and Chris Harris, which aired on 12 May 2008 (Groff, Harris and Fryman, 2008), Lilly must sell all her clothes or sell her own paintings in order to raise money to repair the floor in her and Marshall’s new apartment. Fortunately, there is a couple without kids or GCWOK who buys one of her paintings or, more specifically, the frame of the painting. The abbreviation is pronounced as a regular word /dʒi:kvɒk/, thus the term belongs to the group of acronyms. The acronym is also used in the phrase GCWOK approved, in the sense that a gay couple finds someone’s clothes trendy and fashionable. The phrase characterizes a stereotypical view that all gay men have a keen sense for fashion. A blogger on My It Thinks (GCWOK…, n.d.) writes, “I've never had a gay best friend like some girls […] So I'm on the lookout for a GCWOK. Know where I can find one? Sign me up.”

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The episode “The Possimpible” produced the largest number of insanulous words. The title itself is insanulous. The lexeme is a blend of insane and ridiculous. The episode was written by Jonathan Groff and aired on 2 February 2009 (Groff and Fryman, 2009). A reader on Autoblog best uses the term, describing the latest sports car by Ferrari, “I think I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around these output numbers. I mean, what do you even DO with 800 hp? It's insanulous” (ufm3, 2012).

Marshall, who is a lawyer by profession in the series, used the term lawyered whenever he won an argument. If someone gets lawyered, there is no chance of rebuttal. The verb lawyer has acquired a new sense. The verb form lawyered is constructed from the verb lawyer and the inflectional suffix –ed used for the regular past participle form of the verb. Even though the word has all the orthographic, semantic and functional prerequisites as a word that could be useful in everyday language, there are few examples of authentic use. There is a female lawyer who writes a blog on the microblogging website Tumblr titled “You Just Got Lawyered” (You Just Got Lawyered, 2015).

Perhaps Barney’s most famous word on the show was legendary, or as he put it legen-wait for it-dary. He used it whenever he wanted to make plans sound better than they actually were. Similar to lawyered, the term has undergone a semantic shift. In the case of legendary, the meaning has been broadened to also include events which do not have positive connotation attached to them. The term can acquire a phrase in the position of an infix. There are many such examples in the series, e.g. de-wait for it-nied or porn-wait for it-ography. The word is extremely popular among fans of the series as there are countless social media posts, blogs and T-shirts, coffee mugs and other memorabilia featuring the word. The term also found a place in a university setting. A group of students at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock write, “Our campus has a group of students that are truly legen (wait for it) dary. The UALR Legionnaires are the official student ambassadors under the Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management” (mkm9, 2014).

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In the series, the character Barney has slept with numerous women usually younger than thirty. Occasionally, he would sleep with older women, who were referred to as cougars. However, if a woman is even older than a cougar, she would be referred to as a Mellencamp. The term appeared in the episode “Home Wreckers”, which aired on 19 April 2010, and which was written by Chris Harris (Harris and Fryman, 2010). The American Dialect Society named the term the most creative word of 2011 (American…, 2012). They defined the word as “a woman who has aged out of being a ‘cougar’ (after John Cougar Mellencamp).” However, Urban Dictionary has an entry dating back to 2008. A user by the name of Civixen (2008) writes that Mellencamp is “the opposite of a cougar.”, which does not have the same sense as used in How I Met Your Mother or as defined by the American Dialect Society. The term Mellencamp is attributed to the singer John Cougar Mellencamp. It is a word play on his name, in the sense that Mellencamp is what comes after Cougar. The term is an eponymous word, which is used as a comic instrument to elicit a reaction from its audience, as in What happens when a woman ceases to be a cougar; she turns into a Mellencamp. The word may only be known to a small group of language users, as there are no examples found of the word used in newspaper articles or other publications.

The next word was used in the episode “”. Marshall created the word revertigo to describe Robin’s behaviour when she met her old boyfriend. Revertigo may be described as reverting one’s personality to a younger self when encountering people from one’s past. There are two possibilities as to the origin and formation of the word. First, the word may be a derivative of the verb revert and the Latin suffix –igo, which was once used to name medical conditions (Haubrich, 2003: 133). It is also possible that the term revertigo is constructed on the basis of the term vertigo, while a combination of the two is the most likely scenario.

The episode was written by Kourtney Kang and aired on 21 April 2008 (Kang and Fryman, 2008). Elisabeth Scott, a stress management expert, talks about the effects of revertigo in her column:

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While revertigo can sometimes be a fun distraction, it can be stressful, too. For example, many people go through revertigal transformation when they visit their families for the holidays, and end up playing a sort of role in response to other family members. (Scott, 2008)

She created her own word, the adjective revertigal, which is a derivative from the noun revertigo, to describe a person’s behaviour at family gatherings.

The next words have quite possibly most significantly impacted on popular culture. The term slap bet is a frequent occurrence in the series. It first appeared in the episode originally titled “Robin Sparkles”, but was later changed to “Slap Bet” in order not to give the ending away (How I Met Your Mother, n.d.). The episode aired on 20 November 2006 and was written by Kourtney Kang (Kang and Fryman, 2006). According to Urban Dictionary (mrcool, 2006), slap bet is “a bet where no money or property is involved, and the prize for winning is getting to slap the loser across the face.” The user adds that slap bets are used when the stakes are high or of great importance, while a slap commissioner oversees the bet. The term is constructed from two nouns, slap and bet, thus forming a nominal compound where the left hand member slap modifies the right-hand member bet. The compound belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. The term or rather the action has since become a mainstay in popular culture. There are many examples of such bets on YouTube and other social networking sites. One such example can be found on the blogging site Gawker, where a video is shown of a groom deciding to cash in on a slap bet during the wedding ceremony. A user on the website writes “The best thing about the slap bet is the fear it instills in the loser as they tentatively shuffle through life waiting for the other hand to drop. On their face” (Zimmerman, 2013).

For someone to understand the meaning of steak sauce, one needs to know about the American food industry. There is a steak sauce which is sold by a company named A.1., thus the meaning A1, the best, excellent. The term was used in the episode “Life Among the Gorillas”, which aired on 20 March 2006 and was written by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas (Bays, Thomas and Fryman, 2006). Steak sauce was originally a condiment served with meat and other dishes, but has

95 acquired a new metaphorical meaning in the series. Recently, the noun sauce has been used as a suffix signifying intensity in the meaning of great and stupid (American Dialect Society, 2011), e.g. awesome-sauce and lame-sauce. While, the example steak sauce is a compound signifying the proprietary term A.1. Steak Sauce, Okrent (2014) writes that sauce as in weak sauce has been in use since the 1980s. She writes that in the early 2000s sauce was used in combination with other words, ranging from adjectives to nouns, e.g. crazysauce, dopesauce, nerdsauce and WTFsauce. Chris Serico (2015) uses awesome-sauce in one of his articles. He writes that “if you like the ʻJurassic Parkʼ franchise, NBC’s ʻParks and Recreationʼ or their shared star, Chris Pratt, ʻJurassic Parks and Recreationʼ is the ʻawesome-sauceʼ mashup you never knew you needed until now.” The free morpheme sauce in steak sauce should not be considered a suffix as it is not attached to steak as in steaksauce or separated by a hyphen as in steak-sauce, but should be analysed as a compound.

Another word from the episode “The Possimpible” is the title itself, the possimpible. Barney himself describes the word best:

“Barney: All my life, I have dared to go past what is possible.

Narrator: To the impossible?

Barney: Actually, past that to the place where the possible and the impossible meet to become the possimpible” (Groff and Fryman, 2009).

The possimpible is a blend of the possible and the impossible. The meaning of the blend is constructed from a combination of both blend elements. The possimpible is a kind of word that is best suited to the business world. Therefore, it is not surprising to find the word on the website of Rich Sands, an instructor for improving businesses. He offers advice on his website, titled Rich Sands Seminars. In his article, he adds the suffix –ness to the possimpible creating a new word. “Only we can take our businesses into Possimpibleness.” (Sands, 2014)

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5.1.2.4 The Colbert Report There are not many TV shows that have had such tremendous influence on American culture in the last decade as the late-night satirical show The Colbert Report (2005-2014) and its host Stephen Colbert. The series ended in 2014 after nine years. Stephen Colbert played a character who was based on various Fox News anchors, especially Bill O’Reilly. Although Stephen Colbert portrayed a conservative Republican news anchor, he was immensely popular among liberals. One can argue that his show was one of only a few in the USA which delivered news objectively and would challenge anyone who would try to disguise lies as truth. Such a claim was also collaborated by a report by the Pew Research Center (Anderson and Gottfried, 2014), which found that more than twenty percent of younger males got their news from The Colbert Report. In addition to being influential, he was extremely amusing with his satirical views of American life. He is considered quite a wordsmith, inventing new words almost on a daily basis. There is a Wiki site titled Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia (Wikiality…, n.d.) dedicated to his coinages. The site also includes a dictionary of his linguistic inventions.

The following three examples, although known, have not gained much traction among users of English. Coinages eneagled, engayify and freem are not found in renowned dictionaries such as Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. However, they all feature in the Urban Dictionary. According to Urban Dictionary, eneagled implies to be “ʻendowed with eagle like qualities,ʼ which include powerfulness, majesty, and patriotism” (sepiolid, 2007). The term is a denominal adjective, constructed from the noun an eagle and the affixes en- and –ed. Yet, the term is classified as a verb in Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia. (Wikiality…, n.d.) in the sense of “to give legal power, capacity, or sanction of an eagle.”, as it may be derived from the verb eneagle. Another term invented by Stephen Colbert is the verb engayify (Colbert, 2009), which literally means to gay it up. Both examples are a sign of Colbert’s preference for the prefix en-.

The noun freem was first used on 9 January 2007 (Wikiality…, n.d.). However, there is some debate as regards its meaning. The word was used in a segment

97 depicting George W. Bush urging soldiers to liberate Iraq, in essence meaning free them or free’em Iraqis. The second option that is stated on Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia is that it is just a different way of spelling freedom. The last option and quite possibly the best explanation of the word is freedom without the do in it. From the point of view of word-formation, freem as freedom without the do in it would be a clipped form, where the medial part –do- is eliminated. Yet, it could also be just the result of casual pronunciation. However, Stephen Colbert might not have been the creator of the word since there is a song titled What is a Freem? by Steve Allen (Musicprof78, 2010).

One of his many created words is the term mantasy, which is blend of the adjective male and the noun fantasy. The dictionary on the website Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia describes the word as:

the male fantasy that Matthew McConaughey lives out on behalf of all true red, white, and blue-blooded, heterosexual, married American males. Men would love to do nothing more than bang hot Brazilian chicks, get high and run in the street, and bang on their bongos while naked all day long. Most men can't do this, however, because they are shackled by the institution of marriage. (Wikiality…, n.d.)

In short, mantasy means to be sexually or non-sexually attracted to a man. As a user by the name of SDNativeinTX (2013) writes on a San Diego Chargers community about a prospective American football player “So there it is my friends, my unhealthy mantasy for a Center with a busted foot that I believe may be a future Pro-Bowler at any O-line position he is asked to play, including Left Tackle.” The meaning of mantasy in the quote does not necessarily imply sexual attraction, but rather admiration for an up-and-coming American football player.

There is not a single word that is as synonymous with Stephen Colbert as the word truthiness. Although the word was not created by him, the current meaning and the popularization of the word is credited to him. Oxford Dictionaries (truthiness, n.d.) states that the word has its origins in the early 19th century, when it meant truthfulness. Colbert’s truthiness is defined as “the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true” (truthiness, n.d.). The American

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Dialect Society (2006) named truthiness 2005 Word of the Year. They described the word as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.” Stephen Colbert (2005) defined the word as truth that comes from the gut. The word first appeared in the episode that aired on 17 October 2005. The stem of truthiness is true. The final derivative truthiness undergoes three changes: true (adj.) + -th truth (n.)

truth (n.) + -y truthy (adj.)

truthy (adj.) + -ness truthiness (n.)

The popularity and meaning of the word make it a perfect candidate for newspapers and magazines dealing with political issues. Examples include an article by Jill Lawrence (2013) titled “The Truthiness of Rand Paul - The junior senator from Kentucky could transform the GOP—if the facts don't get in his way” and James Poniewozik’s (2015) article in Time magazine titled “Bill O’Reilly and the Truthiness Defense”.

Another word that became quite popular is the blend wikiality, constructed from Wikipedia and reality. Stephen Colbert discussed the impact of Wikipedia on our reality. In his popular segment “The Word”, he explained how everyone can change facts on Wikipedia, providing an example of numbers of elephants in Africa, even though that was not the case. His message of the segment was that if most of us agree on a subject than it must true. His final inspirational words were “together, we can create a reality that we can all agree on – the reality we just agreed on” (Colbert, 2006). His view of Wikipedia-based reality is suspect, and he uses irony and to convey his message. The segment was shown in an episode which aired on 31 July 2006. It is a topic that is quite controversial in academic circles and institutions of learning. The question that is most often asked is whether one can use Wikipedia as a reliable source of information since anyone can contribute to Wikipedia articles, even deliberately inserting false information. Jacqueline Hicks Grazette (2007) explores the topic of Wikipedia in schools in her Washington Post article titled “Wikiality in My

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Classroom”. She raises important questions, such as plagiarism and cheating, taking the initiative and carrying out research rather than copying and pasting material, as well as the proper use of Internet sources. She concludes that teachers must adapt and be properly trained for the future.

5.1.2.5 Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live is a live late-night sketch comedy show created by in 1975 (IMDB, n.d.). It has been a staple of late night television ever since. The show has created many film and television stars since its inception. Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Adam Sandler, and Tina Fey have all become household names in the entertainment business. The show’s focus is on contemporary culture and politics, some of the most famous sketches being the portrayal of George W. Bush by Will Ferrell (solartomcotter, 2012). Not only has the show had a great impact on American popular culture, it has also had an impact on the English language.

Some of the most colourful characters on the show were Wayne and Garth, portrayed by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. In the early 1990s, they had a segment titled “Wayne’s World”, which also spawned two films, Wayne’s World (1992) and Wayne’s World 2 (1993). Wayne and Garth were hosts of a show on a local channel, which was filmed in Wayne’s basement. When describing beautiful women, they would exclaim schwing to signal their attractiveness. Peters (2007: 102) describes schwing as “if boners could talk, schwing is what they would say.” The interjection belongs to onomatopoetic words. Much like skadoosh, the term is a representation of sudden movements used for comic purposes. The term made it into the popular magazine . Peter Travers (1992) reviewed the year in cinema by claiming “the trailer for the R-rated Basic Instinct is over in a minute and approved for all audiences. But it offered enough hints of bondage and kinky sex to make Sharon Stone the 1992 queen of schwing.”

Will Ferrell’s spot-on impersonation of George W. Bush has garnered him much acclaim and praise for his fake Bushisms. One such made-up Bushism is strategery. According to Peters (2007: 227), strategery is a misspelling of strategy

100 which indicates dubious motives, especially in the light of Georg W. Bush’s presidency. The term was used on 7 October 2000 (Peters, 2007: 227). According to Oxford Dictionaries, the origin of strategery can be traced to the mid-19th century as an alteration of strategy. The structure of strategery might be the result of an unintentional error (strategery, n.d.). Yet, it may also be a derivative of strategy and the suffix –ery. This contradicts claims that Will Ferrell created the term. He may only be credited for popularizing it. Strategery is one of those terms that is perfectly suited for use in political articles. John Tomasic (2014) writes the article “Wiretap: Republican immigration ‘strategery’ grows more tragicomic” in The Colorado Independent discussing the Republican strategy on immigration. There have been many books published analysing Bushisms. Jacob Weisberg (2007) has written many of them, e.g. The Ultimate George W. Bushisms: Bush at War (with the English Language).

5.1.2.6 Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek universe has perhaps the biggest following among the TV series discussed in my M.A. thesis. The fans of the show are called trekkies or trekkers and go to great lengths to familiarize themselves with the Star Trek canon. Some go so far as to learn the fictional Klingon language. The fictional universe takes place in the 23rd century and was created by Gene Roddenberry in 1966 (IMDB, n.d.). It spawned six TV series, twelve feature films as well as numerous novels and games (Star Trek, n.d.). The characters Kirk, Spock, Picard and Data have become culturally recognized figures. This thesis will focus on the third series of the franchise Star Trek: The Next Generation which ran from 1987 to 1994 (IMDB, n.d.). Most of the new terms invented on the show have found use in science. Although some terms were created before 1990, they will nevertheless be included as the series did not finish until the mid-1990s.

One such example is a race of cybernetically-enhanced beings whose only purpose is to assimilate other races. They are called the Borg. of cyborgs first appeared in the episode Q Who, which aired on 6 May 1989 (Hurley and Bowman, 1989). Gene Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley are credited for writing

101 the episode. The Borg do not speak much. However, their phrase resistance is futile has become a mainstay in popular culture. It is not known how the term was created. It is likely that the term the Borg comes from the noun cyborg, where the first part of the word, i.e. the first syllable, is truncated. The term may also be used as an adjective Borg-like. Gareth Branwyn wrote a book Borg Like Me & Other Tales of Art, Eros, and Embedded Systems (Branwyn, 2014), while Steve Russell (2000) contemplates in his article “Are We Trapped In a Borg-like World?” whether we as a race are becoming dehumanized as well as mechanized.

Another future technology that was shown on Star Trek: The Next Generation was a holodeck. The technology was first shown in the episode “Encounter at Farpoint”, which aired on 26 September 1987 and was written by Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana (Fontana, Roddenberry and Allen, 1987). Holodeck is a large room which can mimic any environment from cities, rooms, forests, other planets and computer generated beings. The term is a blend of hologram and deck. An article in the Daily Mail’s online edition states that a holodeck has become a reality. “To replicate the experience of being in a Star Trek holodeck, the team use a wireless virtual reality Oculus Rift headset.” (O’Callaghan, 2014)

Nanotechnology has been the latest thing in computer science in the last few years, as computer chips are being built with nanotechnology. However, the series had the foresight in 1989 to predict the influence that nanotechnology would have on our lives. In the episode “Evolution”, tiny robots infected the starship Enterprise and caused severe damage. Acting ensign Wesley Crusher called these robots nanites. Nanites belong to the group of neo-classical compounds. The term is constructed from the combining form nano- and the nominal suffix –ite. Writing credits belong to Gene Roddenberry, Michael Piller and Michael Wagner. The episode aired on 23 September 1989 (Piller, Wagner and Kolbe, 1989). An article on SciTechDaily.com describes how nanites could effectively be used in modern medicine. “Nanites and nano-scale robots have been found mostly in the realm of science-fiction, but scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biological Inspired Engineering are working on making them a reality.” (Cancer-Fighting DNA Nanorobots, 2012)

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5.1.2.7 World Wrestling Entertainment Professional wrestling has had a long tradition in American culture. It is as American as apple pie and baseball. Wrestling has been around for more than 100 years and has created many legendary wrestlers, such as Gorgeous George, Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan, The Rock and John Cena. Professional wrestling reached a peak in the 1980s, when Hulk Hogan created his Hulkamania, and in the late 1990s when the World Wrestling Federation, now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), launched the Attitude Era. The Attitude Era was the most successful and the most profitable period in professional wrestling. Stars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart and The Rock were all tremendously popular. In professional wrestling, every wrestler has to rely on his ability to capture the audience’s imagination, to suspend their disbelief. They have to make sure that audiences believe that what they see is true, even though it is a known fact that the results are predetermined. Professional wrestling has had quite an impact on the language. Wrestlers become famous because of their catchphrases and their ability to cut a promo. Many phrases and words, such as kayfabe, babyface and tag team, stem from professional wrestling.

One of the most controversial moments in professional wrestling is the so called Montreal screwjob (Survivor Series, 1997). Before every wrestling match, wrestlers know exactly how the match is going to be played out as well as the end result. However, on 9 November 1997, a match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels did not go according to plan. Bret Hart was leaving for another wrestling company and, being the champion, he was supposed to lose to his rival. However, he was unwilling to lose to Shawn Michaels, as there was bad blood between the two in addition to the contest being held in his home country, Canada. A plan for the match was made between all the parties involved and everything was going according to plan when, unbeknownst to Bret Hart, Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWE, ordered the referee to end the match and award the championship to Shawn Michaels. On that night the term screwjob was created. Screwjob may be described as an event that does not turn out as planned because one party changes the rules of the game. The noun screwjob is a nominal compound constructed from the verb screw and the noun job. The compound belongs to the group of

103 exocentric compounds as the compound does not refer to a job or work, but rather to deceit. There are some examples of the term being used, mostly in sports- related texts. One such example can be found on the Sports Archives Blog. In 2012 there was a boxing match that featured Manny Pacquiao:

On June 9th, 2012, Manny Pacquiao experienced once of the biggest screw jobs in the history of the sport of boxing. In basic terms, Pacquiao dominated his opponent, Timothy Bradley, in almost every round of their fight, but two of the judges in charge of scoring the fight put Bradley ahead on their scorecards. (The Pacquiao-Bradley Screwjob, 2013)

There was not a wrestler more popular in the late 1990s than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He was extremely colourful and imaginative when, in front of a microphone, in 1997, he created the word smackdown, which made it into American and British dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries (smackdown, n.d.b) defines the term as a bitter contest or as a decisive defeat, while Merriam- Webster’s online dictionary (smackdown, n.d.a) adds two more meanings. It explains that smackdown is the act of knocking down an opponent and a contest in entertainment wrestling. At first sight, the noun smackdown resembles a compound construction of the verb smack and the preposition down. However, it is the right-hand member of the compound that determines its word class. Therefore, a smackdown would have to be a preposition. Clearly, the lexeme is a noun. Consequently, a different word-formation process is at play in forming smackdown. In this case, conversion is used to create smackdown from the phrasal verb smack down. The word became so popular that a wrestling show was named after it in 1999 (IMDB, n.d.). The word can be found in various newspapers and magazines. One such example can be seen in an article of the London Free Press. Jane Sims (Sims, 2014) writes on a legal matter that involved a runaway orthodox Jewish family. “It’s the second time an Ontario judge has given the group a legal smackdown for flouting court orders and pulling up stakes.”

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5.1.2.8 The Oprah Winfrey Show Oprah Winfrey was America’s favourite daytime talk show host. Her show The Oprah Winfrey Show became a staple of American pop culture. It ran for 25 years from 1986 to 2011 (IMDB, n.d.). The show produced many memorable moments which have become widely known across the globe, from the infamous Michael Jackson interview in 1993, and Tom Cruise jumping on her couch confessing his love for Katie Holmes in 2005 to James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces book controversy in 2006 (Dawn, 2013). Oprah Winfrey’s popularity and influence in the USA has ensured that her word usages have often become imitated and replicated. According to Merriam-Webster (aha moment, n.d.), the term aha moment was originally coined in 1939. Yet, it was Winfrey’s use which has catapulted the word into mainstream consciousness. Merriam-Webster defines the word as “a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension” (aha moment, n.d.). The word is a compound of the interjection aha and the noun moment. The compound belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. The term may be used in inspirational and uplifting articles. One such example is the article written by Thomas Heath (2011) for The Washington Post. He writes “The aha moment - which eventually led to his current businesses - occurred when he had to update the book's online site. Carson bought a Dummies guide and taught himself how to get the job done.”

Oprah Winfrey’s series became so popular that the term Oprahesque was derived from her name. Peters (2007: 35) best describes the term by claiming that to be Oprahesque is “to be giving and nurturing. On the other hand, this word can connote self-obsession and psychobabble.” It is a preferred term to use when describing people who behave in a manner befitting Oprah Winfrey herself. The adjective Oprahesque is constructed from the eponymous name Oprah and the adjectival suffix –esque. In a New York Times article, written by Todd S. Purdum (1995), he compares former president Bill Clinton’s speech as Oprahesque writing “ʻI just have to tell you how I feel about it,ʼ the President confessed in an Oprah- esque preface to his vow to oppose any effort to repeal last year's ban on 19 types of assault weapons.” As can be seen in the article, the spelling of the word is not yet completely defined as the word may be hyphenated or not.

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5.1.2.9 The Simpsons The longest running cartoon series The Simpsons began in 1989 (IMDB, n.d.). In its 26 years, it has produced the cultural icons Bart and Homer as well as many memorable moments. The popularity of the series and its large and loyal fan base have ensured that words created in the series have become recognized in American culture. One such word was created in 1996. In the episode “Lisa the Iconoclast”, written by Jonathan Collier (Collier and Anderson, 1996), the character Ms Hoover reassures Mrs Krabappel that embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word. According to the Internet Movie Database page of the episode, the term was coined by David X. Cohen (IMDB, n.d.). Cromulent is an odd word that means fine, acceptable or normal. The Dictionary of American Slang defines the adjective cromulent as “appearing legitimate but actually being spurious” (cromulent, n.d.). Peters (2007: 218) states that the term cromulent is its own antonym. David Colon (2013) wrote an article on the web magazine Brokelyn titled “Have a perfectly cromulent night and 8 other free ways to spend the week”.

The same episode produced another new coinage, which found its way into the field of theoretical physics. The verb embiggen means to make things bigger (Peters, 2007: 220). It is a synonym of enlarge. The verb embiggen is a deadjectival derivative constructed from the adjective big and the verbal affixes em- and –en. The term may have been used in the series as a means to elicit humour from its audience, but embiggen may also be used in advanced physics. The word is found in a scientific paper titled “Gauge/gravity duality and meta- stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking”. The authors write:

While in both cases for P anti-D3-branes the probe approximation is clearly not good, in the set up of this paper we could argue that there is a competing effect which can overcome the desire of the anti-D3s to embiggen, namely their attraction towards the wrapped D5s. (Argurio et al.: 30)

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It is fascinating to observe that American popular culture is not only for the common masses, but can contribute to advanced scientific fields of research as well.

5.1.2.10 Other TV series The following shows have also left a footprint on American culture and language. The shows themselves may not have been as language productive as those previously mentioned, yet the words that originated from them can be heard and seen in popular newspapers, magazines and other TV series as well as all over the Internet.

The most important day in some women’s lives is their wedding. Their obsession with every tiny detail has garnered some women the undistinguished title of bridezillas. The term is a blend of bride and Godzilla. Much like Godzilla, which destroys everyone and everything in its path, a bridezilla follows a similar path of destruction in search of the perfect wedding day. The term bridezilla is defined as “a bride-to-be who, while planning her wedding, becomes exceptionally selfish, greedy, and obnoxious” (Word Spy, n.d.). Word Spy (n.d.) cites the earliest use in 1995, while the term has become popularized by numerous television series and films, e.g. the televisions series Bridezillas (2004- ) (IMDB, n.d.). When the wedding day does not turn out as planned, things can end up in the legal system. An article in Daily Mail writes of a couple who sued the host of a reality series:

A couple claimed their celebrity wedding planner’s ‘arrogant’ and ‘despicable’ actions almost ruined their $300,000 big day.

But Melissa Chin and husband Steve Choi have now dropped their $200,000 lawsuit against My Fair Wedding TV host David Tutera after a long-running war of words.

Chin - labelled ‘Bridezilla’ by Tutera when she sued him - had accused the star of sabotaging her 2009 wedding. Tutera has also dropped his counter-suit in New York. (DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 2011)

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In the title of the article “‘Bridezilla’ couple drop lawsuit against TV wedding planner for 'ruining' $300,000 big day” (DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 2011) the noun bridezilla is used to refer to a man and not exclusively a woman.

The television series Arrested Development (2003- ), created by Mitchell Hurwitz (IMDB, n.d.), has gained much critical acclaim throughout the years. One of the more colourful words in the series is the interjection douche chill. It can also be used as a noun. The American Dialect Society (American…, 2005) defines the noun and the interjection as “used to break a sudden silence after a verbal faux pas.” The term douche chill belongs to the group of exocentric compounds. Douche chill is one of those words which are not normally associated with respected newspapers meant for the intellectual elite, but appears mostly on message boards, social media websites and blogs. Don Montrey writes on his blog about douche chills:

Listen to any Gary Garver interview on Stern and you’ve probably experienced a douche chill. But nothing is quite as douche chilly as the following collection of clips. Watch the clip between Tom Selleck and Rosie O’Donnell (around 4 minutes). That feeling you get in the stomach the moves up your back and physically makes you shrink away in embarrassment is a douche chill. (Montrey, 2007)

In addition to douche chill being used as a noun and an interjection, Montrey also creates the adjective douche chilly.

Another term associated with TV and film genres is the noun dramality. Mark Burnett, the creator of Survivor (2000- ), coined the word dramality in the year 2000 (McFedries, 2004: 206). Word Spy (Word Spy, n.d.) defines the term as “a television show or series that includes elements of both drama and reality programming.” The word dramality is a blend of drama and reality. Dramalities such as Jersey Shore (2009) and The Real Housewives of Orange County (2006) and other iterations have influenced other English speaking markets to produce their own dramalities. An article in The Guardian explores the future of dramalities amidst sinking viewership numbers:

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Towie is the of the home-grown scripted reality genre, taking its template from US hits The Hills and Jersey Shore. The rash of copycats that its Bafta-winning success spawned will now be looking nervously over their shoulder-pads. If the market leader is losing its grip, what hope for the ʻdramalityʼ me-toos? (Hogan, 2012)

One of the more popular reality series of the new millennium was Extreme Makeover. The series ran from 2002 to 2007 (IMDB, n.d.) and spawned an even more popular spin-off show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (IMDB, n.d.). The word that originated in the series comes from the title itself, extreme makeover. According to Peters (2007: 190), to have an extreme makeover means to have a significant “facelift of someone’s face, home, or other valuable asset.” The term extreme makeover is a nominal compound and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. Wendy Lewis (2009) writes in her article that “Women no longer want an extreme makeover, rather they want to look refreshed and relaxed – like themselves, but better.”

The comedy, drama and music television series Glee was extremely popular among audiences. The series was created by Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy and ran from 2009 till 2015 (IMDB, n.d.). Fans of the series are called Gleeks, which is a blend of Glee and geek. The word won the 2010 fan word of the year by the American Dialect Society (2011). The series also spawned an iPhone and an iPad app titled “Glee”, as Jenna Wortham (2010) writes that “Fans of Glee, Fox’s campy comedy about the misadventures of a high school show choir, now have one more way to ‘gleek’ out: Using their iPhones and iPads.” In the quote, Wortham uses the phrasal verb gleek out. While Urban Dictionary defines the verb gleek out as “to indulge in repeated viewing of the show called Glee” (EiramEnnovy, 2013), Wortham’s use differs from the one in the Urban Dictionary, i.e. gleek out is used in the sense of to engage enthusiastically in Glee- related activities.

The next word comes from a series that began in the 1980s and ran into the 1990s. The word derives from the name of the series MacGyver. The series ran from 1985 to 1992 and was created by Lee David Zlotoff (IMDB, n.d.). Richard Dean

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Anderson played the title role of MacGyver. MacGyver is a handy person who can do an incredible amount with only a few things at hand. Peters (2007: 31) describes the eponym MacGyver as a handy person that can make a bomb out of anything. He goes on by stating that there are many variations of the term that are in use today. Variations such as pull a MacGyver, go MacGyver and a mini- MacGyver can be heard and seen. There are several books which reference MacGyver, i.e. the type of a handy person. Bret Terrill and Greg Dierkers wrote The Unofficial MacGyver How-To Handbook (Terrill and Dierkers, 2005), while Brendan Vaughan wrote What Would MacGyver Do?: True Stories of Improvised Genius in Everyday Life (Vaughan, 2007). Mark Lebetkin (2014) wrote an article “Be like MacGyver: 12 pocket multitools for travellers” for the website USA Today. He writes that “Some multitools are so well equipped for the task at hand they take the MacGyver out of MacGyvering and are just, well, useful.” He created another category for the word using the term MacGyvering as a gerund.

The next item was not created on any television series or film, but was certainly popularized because of them. Paul McFedries’ website Word Spy (n.d.) dates the earliest use of man cave to 1992. The noun is defined as “an area of a house, such as a basement, workshop, or garage, where a man can be alone with his power tools and projects” (Word Spy, n.d.). The lexeme man cave is a compound of man and cave and belongs to the group of exocentric compounds. There are numerous examples in popular culture, where man caves played an integral part in the film’s or series’ setting. American television series Home Improvements (1991-1999), Married with Children (1987-1997) and How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) all utilized man caves. Man caves have become extremely popular as men all around the world seek to build their own fortresses of solitude. Many websites are dedicated to helping men design and build their own man caves. The DIY Network broadcasts the series Man Caves (2007- ) and they have compiled a list of ten valuable tips on how to make a leftover room into a sanctuary or a man cave for the average man. Tip number one says, “Take some time to walk through the space and visualize what you want your Man Cave to look like. Be realistic in your assessment of the space and function” (10 Tips to Designing…, n.d.).

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The following word stems from the name of the show. Pimp My Ride was a reality TV series that was hosted by Xzibit and ran from 2004 until 2007 (IMDB, n.d.). The purpose of the show was to improve cars, visually and mechanically. Originally, the verb pimp meant to obtain customers for prostitutes. However, through the show the meaning of the verb was extended to mean to improve something, to customize it or to make it flashier. Nowadays, there are many variations of the term. Anything and everything can be used instead of ride. Allen Salkin (2006) has written an article in The New York Times titled “Pimp My Grill”, while Paula Wynne (2011) has written a book titled Pimp My Site: The DIY Guide to SEO, Search Marketing, Social Media and Online PR. A quick search in the Google search engine reveals that anything can be pimped.

In 2003, there was a new TV series that took the concept of hidden cameras and pranking to the world of the rich and famous. Jason Goldberg and Ashton Kutcher created the show Punk’d which ended in 2012 (IMDB, n.d.). The series was based on the concept of hidden cameras and playing tricks, which were sometimes even malicious, on the rich and famous. The series became so popular that the name of the show became an everyday word. Punk’d is the past tense of the verb punk meaning to be duped, conned or otherwise played for a fool (Peters 2007: 198). The past form punk’d is constructed by attaching the inflectional suffix –ed to the base form punk. Drew Jacobs (2014) writes in his article “Lakers Star Nick Young Punk'd By Internet Hoax: Real Life Purge Scare Caused Twitter Reaction” how basketball player Nick Young was part of an Internet hoax.

Sacha Baron Cohen has created many personas. He is known as , a white British suburban rap and hip hop wannabe star, Sagdiyev, a Kazakh journalist, Brüno Gehard, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter, and Admiral General Aladeen, a dictator from a fictional country called the Republic of Wadiya. He is perhaps best known for the role of Borat Sagdiyev. He created the word sexytime as Borat in a segment of on the British TV station in 2000, though the word can be heard in the first episode of the American version of the Da Ali G Show, which was broadcast on HBO in 2003 (Cohen et al., 2003). Sexytime means sex. The word is a nominal compound made of the adjective sexy and the noun time. The word acquired prominence

111 because of the enormous success of his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan in 2006 (Cohen, Roach and Charles, 2006). Robert Coffey used the word in one of his computer game reviews. Coffey (2004; as cited in Peters, 2007: 75) writes “ʻ[…] if the story stinks and the home improvement/decorating options are unrewarding and you really don’t have any control over meaningful game elements and the sexytime is as unsexy as that seen in Auto Focus […].ʼ”

Another cartoon series that has had a long run on television is . The series was created by Seth MacFarlane in 1999 (IMDB, n.d.). In the episode “PTV”, the main character Peter Griffin created the word sideboob. The episode was written by and , and aired on 6 November 2005 (Sulkin et al., 2005). The episode was a satirical reference to ’s infamous at Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. According to Oxford Dictionaries (sideboob, n.d.), sideboob is “the side part of a woman’s , as exposed by a revealing item of clothing.” The word sideboob is a nominal compound that belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. Peters (2007: 78) claims that sideboob can be found sporadically on usenet since 1997. In addition, Peters (2007, 78) mentions that there are also variations of sideboob, e.g. underboob. If sideboob is the side part of a woman’s breast, then underboob is the bottom part of a woman’s breast that is exposed. Quite often sideboobs can be seen on red carpets when female celebrities try to outdo each other by wearing provocative dresses. One such occurrence was seen at the 2013 Met Gala, as an article in The Huffington Post Canada (Anne Hathaway …, 2013) writes “Anne Hathaway took the 2013 Met Gala's punk theme to heart on Monday when she flashed a whole lot of sideboob on the red carpet.”

The Oprah Winfrey Show raised the standard of daily talk shows, where books, racism and other thought-provoking topics were common themes. However, at the other end of the daily talk show spectrum is The Jerry Springer Show. It is often referred to as a sensational talk show or trash TV. The topics are usually outlandish and tabloid-like. Cheating wives and husbands, white supremacists and transsexual lovers are regular guests on the show. Every discussion on the show usually turns into a fight. The show started in 1991 and is still on television today

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(IMDB, n.d.). Because of its popularity, Springeresque became an actual term meaning tawdry, crude, vulgar, flashy, chair-throwing freak show (Peters, 2007: 47). The adjective Springeresque is constructed from the eponymous name Springer and the adjectival suffix –esque. The term can mostly be found in tabloid magazines and newspapers, where topics of such nature are not uncommon. Clemmie Moodie (2010) writes about Liz Hurley’s recent life events. “LIZ Hurley feels her life has turned into a ‘Jerry Springer-esque saga’ after it emerged lover Shane Warne had been chasing a married woman.”

The following word comes from The TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1999). In the episode “The Warrior Princess”, which was written by John Schulian, and which aired on 13 March 1995 (Schulian and Green, 1995), a new character by the name of Xena is revealed. She is called warrior princess. What helped popularize this term is the fact that the actress Lucy Lawless, who portrayed Xena, received her own television series Xena: The Warrior Princess (1995-2001). Peters (2007: 210) describes warrior princess as “part royalty, part badass, all female.” The word warrior princess is a nominal compound which belongs to the group of exocentric compounds. Rebeca Pocklington (2014) writes about Nicole Scherzinger in her article “Nicole Scherzinger channels inner warrior princess in thigh-high boots - but struggles to keep them up”, while Kristin Beck and Anne Speckhard (2013) wrote a book titled Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender.

Viewing audiences have for years gathered around watercoolers at work to discuss the most controversial events in the latest hit television series, hence the term watercooler moment. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the term was first used in 1999. The noun watercooler may be used informally to refer “to the type of informal conversation among office workers that takes place around a water cooler” (water cooler, n.d.). It can also be used as a modifier, always appearing before a noun, e.g. watercooler chat, watercooler conversation, watercooler event. The term watercooler moment is a nominal compound belonging to the group of endocentric compounds. However, with the rise of online video streaming services and binge-watching on the rise, watercooler moments could come to an end. The Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey agrees with Hugo Gye

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(2013), who writes that “Mr Spacey suggested that the era of the ‘water-cooler moment’ was dead, and predicted that more series would in future be broadcast all at once rather than on a weekly basis.” The modifier watercooler may be hyphenated, solid or open, depending on the person using the word.

The final two words in this section could as well be listed under the section of technology. They are terms that blur the lines between popular culture and technology, which often occurs because of the digital age in which the entertainment industry has found itself. They are the terms webisode and webcast. The noun webisode is a blend of web as in World Wide Web and episode. Merriam-Webster dictionary (webisode, n.d.) defines the word as “an episode especially of a TV show that may or may not have been telecast but can be viewed at a Web site.” According to Merriam-Webster (webisode, n.d.), the first documented use of the word is in 1996. Many television series use webisodes to show or promote their televised series on the Internet. One of the more popular television series to use the format of webisodes was the sitcom Scrubs (2001- 2010). Large broadcasting companies are forced into using new technologies, with NBC leading the pack, as seen from an article in The New York Times:

But not everything the network does is reductive. One area in which NBC, and its sister cable channels in the NBC Universal family, have consistently provided more than the other big networks is online: they’re the only reliable purveyors of true Webisodes, if we define the genre narrowly as minidramas produced in conjunction with an existing television series. (Hale, 2008)

The blend webcast is constructed from web as in World Wide Web and broadcast. Syntactically, the term can be used as a noun or a verb. According to Merriam- Webster (webcast, n.d.), it was first used in 1995. Merriam-Webster defines the noun webcast as “a transmission of sound and images (as of an event) via the Wide World Web” (webcast, n.d.). There are also derivatives based on webcast, such as the nouns webcaster and webcasting. Political, scientific and academic institutions as well as broadcasting companies, such as the United Nations, the University of California, Berkeley and SpaceX, all use webcasts as part of their

114 public outreach. The Internet giant Yahoo is also providing webcasts of their own. Richard Sandomir (2015) writes that “Yahoo announced on Thursday that more than 30 advertisers would present spots during the game and that the webcast was sold out.”

5.2 Music This section investigates the music industry and its impact on the English vocabulary. Similar to films and television series, some new lexical items are borderline cases between music and technology. Not all words were created by music artists, but were popularized because of their reach to their large fan base. Table 3 lists the words which are presented in this section.

order presented words order presented words 1. Auto-Tune, autotune 8. Kanye’d 2. beliebers 9. Kardash 3. bling-bling 10. make it rain 4. crunk 11. mash-up 5. earworm 12. shizze, fo’ shizzle 6. jiggy 13. twerk 7. Kanye interruptus 14. wardrobe malfunction

Table 3: Words associated with music

The first word in this section is an example of the interconnection between popular culture and technology. The term Auto-Tune (v.) or autotune (n.) may not be a popular term among music aficionados, but is widely used in the music industry in the digital age. Merriam-Webster (Auto-Tune, n.d.) defines the verb as “to adjust or alter (a recording) with Auto-Tune software especially to correct sung notes that are out of tune.” While the term is capitalized in Merriam- Webster, it is written in lower case letters in Oxford Dictionaries (autotune, n.d.). Unlike in Merriam-Webster, Oxford Dictionaries does not hyphenate the compound, but writes it as a solid compound. In addition, Oxford Dictionaries

115 lists the proprietary word as both a verb and a noun with the meaning of a device used to correct a singer’s vocal deficiencies. Cher’s popular song “Believe”, which was released in 1998, is often credited for being the first song to utilize Auto-Tune (Lee, 2008). Since then, many music artists have taken advantage of -correction software, including the hip-hop singer Ke$ha. An article in The Verge describes her singing:

In January of 2010, Kesha Sebert, known as ‘Ke$ha’ debuted at number one on Billboard with her album, Animal. Her style is electro pop-y dance music: she alternates between rapping and singing, the choruses of her songs are typically melodic party hooks that bore deep into your brain: “Your love, your love, your love, is my drug!” And at times, her voice is so heavily processed that it sounds like a cross between a girl and a synthesizer. Much of her sound is due to correction software, Auto-Tune. (Anderson, 2013)

Justin Bieber is a pop singer who divides people between beliebers and non- beliebers. A belieber is a fan of Justin Bieber. The blend is constructed from believer and Bieber. The term was nominated for 2010 fan word of the year by the American Dialect Society (2011). Anne T. Donahue describes herself as a Belieber in her article on the Justin Bieber comedy roast. She writes:

Circa 2011, I was a reluctant Belieber. I made fun of Baby, mocked Justin’s hoodies and needed older, wiser friends to introduce me to the genius that was Never Say Never. (, not the song – though that was good, too.) (Donahue, 2015)

The spelling of the term belieber is not yet determined, as there are examples where the term is capitalized or written with a lower case letter. The capitalized version of the term would seem more appropriate as it stems from a personal name and the term has not been in use for long.

Hip-hop musicians have created a large number of new words, many of them stemming from African American Vernacular English. One of the more prominent hip-hop expressions is the term bling-bling. Although the word can be heard in

116 the song “Dolly My Baby (Bad Boy Extended Mix)” by Super Cat feat. Puff Daddy, The Notorious B.I.G. and 3rd Eye in 1993 (Spars et al., 1993), the term was popularized by the American hip hop artist B.G. and his song “” in 1999 (Word Spy, n.d.). Oxford Dictionaries (bling, n.d.) defines the noun as “expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewellery.” The noun may also be used as an adjective in the form of bling or blingy (bling, n.d.). The term bling-bling is a case of reduplication. Oxford Dictionaries (bling, n.d.) writes that the term might imitate reflections bouncing off jewellery or the sound of clashing jewellery. This would suggest that bling-bling is an onomatopoeic word. An interview by Michelle Kwan for Chicago Sun-Times reveals her plans for the future. Kwan says, “ʻ I want to bling-bling it for a while, you know? So when I'm a grandma, I can say, Yeah, Grandma had a Lamborghiniʼ” (Harris, 2006). The term bling- bling may also be used as a verb, as seen from the Michelle Kwan interview.

The term crunk has a double meaning. It may be used as a noun or an adjective. As a noun crunk refers to “a type of hip-hop characterized by repeatedly shouted catchphrases and elements typical of electronic dance music, such as prominent bass” (crunk, n.d.), while the adjective crunk means good or fine and is mostly used in African American Vernacular English (Barrett, 2006b: 75). There is some uncertainty with regard to the word-formation process of the word. Oxford Dictionaries (crunk, n.d.) offers two possibilities, i.e. either the term is an alteration of the past participle crank or the term is a blend of crazy and drunk. The term was popularized by hip-hop artists, such as Usher, Lil Jon, Outkast and others, for their unique style of music production. The word crunk has managed to find its way into religious spheres, as evidenced by an article in Ledger-Enquirer:

Once a month Pastor Tanya Bryant takes her ministry out of the church and into the community.

Bryant organizes the monthly, “Crunk for Christ” rallies at assisted housing, like Elizabeth Canty and Booker T. Washington homes. She calls it “faith without walls.”

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“We're serving God and serving the community,” she said of the rallies, which usually include music, dancing, food and ministry. (Pauff, 2012)

Earworm may have been created in the 1980s according to Word Spy (Word Spy, n.d.), but the word has gained traction as a result of popular songs such as “Call me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen (2012). Earworm is a catchy song which one cannot get out his/her mind. The lexeme earworm is likely a literal translation or a calque of the German Ohrwurm (Word Spy, n.d.) In addition, the lexical item earworm can also be used as a verb. An article about the Disney Dream cruise ship describes the experience of being on the ship by saying, “There isn't a character lurking around every corner, and ʻIt's a Small Worldʼ won't earworm its way into your subconscious” (Rackl, 2011).

Will Smith, known as The Fresh Prince, has only achieved modest success in the music industry. He is better known for his film roles in the blockbuster movies Bad Boys (1995), Independence Day (1996), (1997) and I, Robot (2004). Yet, he is often credited for popularizing the adjective jiggy from his song “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It” (Barnes et al., 1997). Oxford Dictionaries (jiggy, n.d.) labels the word as appropriate for informal use in the USA. There are two meanings of the word provided in the dictionary, i.e. as “uninhibited, especially in a sexual manner” and as “trembling or nervous, especially as the result of drug withdrawal.” Only the first meaning is associated with the adjective jiggy from his song “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It”. Additionally, Oxford Dictionaries describe the adjective as a derivative of the noun jig and the adjectival suffix –y. What is more, there is another meaning of the adjective which is evident from the following excerpt:

When not on the slopes, the mostly upper-class and upper-middle class professionals can be found getting jiggy in the local bars (sometimes on tabletops), testing the maximum limit of people in hot tubs, and otherwise celebrating the pastime that is skiing and the fine art that is aprs-skiing. (Wetzler, 2003)

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The adjective jiggy in the upper extract does not refer to having sex, but rather to having fun, partying and dancing.

The next two new coinages are attributed to the hip-hop singer Kanye West and his shenanigans. Both terms are related to the events of the 2009 Video Music Awards, which were overshadowed by Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. The first term is constructed from the eponym Kanye and the Latin word interruptus or it might be a word play on the verb interrupt. The noun Kanye interruptus is defined as “an important speech or event that is interrupted” (American…, 2010). In addition, the American Dialect Society also defines kanye as a verb in the sense of interrupting someone else’s speech. The verb is often used in the passive form Kanyed or Kanye’d in the sense of to be interrupted while making a speech. The term was nominated for most creative word of the year 2009 by the American Dialect Society (American…, 2010). In 2015, Kanye West struck again, this time at the Grammys, as Ann Oldenburg (2015) writes “It seemed that Kanye was pulling another Kanye-interruptus move — reminiscent of that 2009 moment when he interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards and said Beyoncé should have won.” Ann Oldenburg hyphenated Kanye interruptus which is reminiscent of many new coinages, i.e. many of them not orthographically unified. Additionally, the term is used in a premodifying position.

Just like her husband Kanye West, Kim Kardashian is not immune to her name being used for creating new words. In 2011, the singer, songwriter, parodist and actor Weirld Al Yankovic coined the term Kardash (American…, 2012). The noun Kardash means 72 days, as a reference to Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries’ 72-day long marriage. The term Kardash is constructed from the surname Kardashian. The last part of the surname is shortened to form Kardash. Similar to Kanye interruptus and Kanye’d, it is unlikely that Kardash will gain much popularity among English users, as one needs to be knowledgeable about the cultural background with which these words are associated.

The phrase make it rain has been popularized by the flashy, golden-chain- wearing, low-riding hip-hop artists. The phrase was nominated as one of the most

119 outrageous words and phrases of 2007 by the American Dialect Society (American…, 2008). The American Dialect Society (2008) defines the phrase as “to drop paper money on a crowd of people, especially in strip clubs, nightclubs, or casinos.” The phrase became popular in large part due to Fat Joe’s single and music video “Make It Rain” (Cartagena et al., 2006). An article in the Daily Mail depicts boxing legend Floyd Mayweather and his sprees after he won millions of dollars on NFL betting. Charlie Scott (2014) writes that “The action, known as ʻmaking it rainʼ, secured the American boxer a legion of new fans in LA, as people clamoured to pick up the notes he threw to the floor at Sam's Hofbrau.”

Another term that blurs the line between popular culture and technology is the term mash-up. It is difficult to identify the source of the word, however, Word Spy (n.d.) dates its earliest use to 1999 in the form of mashup. Oxford Dictionaries (mash-up, n.d.) defines mash-up as “a mixture or fusion of disparate elements.” Additionally, there is another explanation of the term mash-up as “a musical track comprising the vocals of one recording placed over the instrumental backing of another.” In this sense, the term has been narrowed. As a result of the term’s popularity, the American Dialect Society (2005) nominated mash-up for the 2004 Word of the Year award. Mash-ups may also be called cut-ups, blends and bastard pop (Word Spy, n.d.). The term bastard pop unmistakeably signals the negative connotation held by mash-up. Furthermore, musical mash-ups are not the only kinds of blends. Seth Colter Walls of Newsweek writes:

Every cinephile knows to at least pretend to like Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard's first feature-a witty mashup of American noir and French chic-is as much an art-house staple today as it was in 1960, which is precisely why it's getting the 50th-anniversary reissue treatment this month. (Colter Walls, 2010)

Colter Walls uses mashup to refer to different kinds of films combined into one. The spelling has not yet been unified with mash-up, mashup or mash up being used in different publications.

The rapper Snoop Dogg is one of the most famous rap musicians in the world. His use of ingenious ways of creating new words is well documented. The television

120 channel MTV names him the slanguistic sensei of hip-hop (Miller, 2004). He is often wrongfully credited as the creator of the suffix –izzle as in shizzle, fo’ shizzle or any other word for that matter. Grant Barrett (2006a) claims that the suffix –izzle has been in use, although sporadically, at least since the 1930s. Oxford Dictionaries (shizzle, n.d.) defines shizzle as shit, while fo’ shizzle means for sure. The term is used euphemistically in various senses and situations. Unlike Grant Barrett, Oxford Dictionaries writes that the term shizzle originated in the 1990s, being an alteration of shit or sure. Nevertheless, Snoop Dogg is the one who popularized the use of the suffix –izzle in the early 2000s (Miller, 2004). The suffix is very productive as almost any word may be combined with the suffix –izzle, e.g. minizzle (a minute), dizzle (a deal or a drink). There is often more than one possibility for many -izzle words. Normally, a large part of a word is shortened before adding the suffix, i.e. dizzle could mean anything that starts with d. Shizzle or fo’ shizzle mostly appear in African American Vernacular English. However, they may be imitated by the white urban population (Ezgeta, 2012: 36), which is not always met with approval. As Chris Nashawaty (2006) writes about Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003) stating that the “Saddest of all is when poor Bob Newhart is forced to deliver the line ʻFo' shizzle, my ezzle,ʼ Jesus wept.”

Miley Cyrus shocked the world at the MTV Video Music Award in 2013 when she decided to twerk on stage. The term and the resulting dance has since then been a popular feature at parties and in countless YouTube videos. Oxford Dictionaries (twerk, n.d.) writes that the term twerk has its origins in the early 19th century as a “noun in the sense of “ʻa twitching or jerking motionʼ”. Moreover, the term twerk is likely a blend of twitch or twist and jerk. The modern sense of twerk is possibly influenced by work (twerk, n.d.). Merriam-Webster (twerking, n.d.) only lists twerking in the sense of “sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid, repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the buttocks especially while squatting.” Contrary to Oxford Dictionaries, Merriam-Webster claims that the first use of twerking was in 2010. It is however possible that the term in its current sense is from the 1993 song “Do the Jubilee All” by DJ Jubilee (Rothman, 2013). There is also some variation with regard to the spelling of the word. Paula

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Chesley (2011: 8) uses twurk in her research of hip-hop terminology. Twerking is a popular activity among sexually uninhibited people and those looking for a great workout of their hips. While younger female generations try to mimic their heroines Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj, the time might come when they have to explain to their parents what twerking is. Teddy Wayne of The New York Times has some advice. He (Wayne, 2013) writes, “You may prefer to put off the big ʻtwerk talk,ʼ but remember that it’s far better for you to be the one to explain than for them to learn on their own by searching YouTube.”

Super Bowl Sunday has become one of the biggest traditions in the USA. Yet, it often occurs that the half-time commercials and the musical performance outshine the game for the Super Bowl ring. In 2004, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were the live performers at half-time. During the performance, Janet Jackson was the victim of a wardrobe malfunction. The term coined by Justin Timberlake (Apologetic Jackson…, 2004) became very popular. It was nominated for 2004 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (2005). The compound wardrobe malfunction may be defined as having problems with clothing and revealing one’s body parts in the process. The compound is constructed from the nouns wardrobe and malfunction and belongs to the type of endocentric compounds. Wardrobe malfunctions are a common occurrence in an age when female celebrities show as much skin as possible. The famed actor Martin Sheen was at a wardrobe malfunction sighting. An article in Daily Mail (Smith, 2015) states, “The Oops C! Mischa Barton suffered a wardrobe malfunction at a movie screening in Hollywood giving her neighbour Martin Sheen quite an eyeful.”

5.3 Social media The following section enumerates some of the words which have their origin in social media and have been adopted by American actors, musicians, comedians and others who are famous just for the sake of fame. It is difficult to say if these words would have much impact on language users if not for celebrities using them, while others try to imitate their heroes and heroines. This is where the border between popular culture, technology and social media becomes extremely

122 vague. In my opinion, without celebrities promoting new technological gadgets, digital services and social networking websites, many newly created lexical items would be quickly forgotten. Table 4 lists the words analysed in this section.

order presented words order presented words 1. selfie 8. follow 2. belfie 9. tweet 3. Facebook 10. hashtag 4. google 11. trend 5. (un-)like 12. viral 6. (un-)friend 13. YouTube 7. share

Table 4: Words associated with social media Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are new channels of self-expression. No other word represents self-expression more than the term selfie. It is the quintessential social media word. It was named 2013 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries (The Oxford Dictionaries…, 2013). Selfie is a self-portrait taken with a smartphone or a webcam and uploaded to a social media website. The derivative is constructed from the noun self and the suffix –ie. The word has its origins in Australia (The Oxford Dictionaries…, 2013), but is extensively used in American English in light of the social media craze. Jessica Gelt (2015) writes how museums are adapting to the selfie culture. She states that “The museum of the future functions as seamlessly as an Apple store, makes recommendations like Amazon, speaks in hashtags, loves Tumblr and is ready for its selfie” (Gelt, 2015). There are many variations of the word. One such term is the noun belfie, apparently coined by the queen of social media personalities and one of the most famous people in the world, Kim Kardashian (Lorenz, 2015). The term belfie is a blend of bottom, buttocks, butt or behind and selfie. The meaning can easily be deduced if one is familiar with the concept of selfies, thus belfie is a selfie of one’s behind. Kim Kardashian is not the only one in her family familiar with the concept of belfies, as Susan Johnson (2015) writes, “Belfie alert! Kendall Jenner is the latest star to indulge in the newest trend — a

123 butt selfie! The model took to Instagram to share a racy shot of her backside, revealing her underbutt in a seriously hot outfit.”

The second term is a worldwide phenomenon. It is known by English native speakers as well as non-English speakers. The social networking website Facebook is challenging the traditional ideas of human interaction and interpersonal relationships. Facebook has become an ever-present force, used by more than billion people on a daily basis (Lee, 2015). This proprietary term is now being used as a verb in our daily lives. Oxford Dictionaries (Facebook, n.d.) lists three different meanings for the verb Facebook, i.e. to spend time on Facebook, “contact (someone) via Facebook” and to post something on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg created the website in 2004. The word was nominated for 2007 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (2008). A Google search conducted on 29 October 2015 displays 17,020,000,000 search results. This shows the magnitude of Facebook’s presence in on our lives. Although not everyone is thrilled about Facebook and its data collection and the resulting loss of privacy, Facebook can be used to bring individuals together to fight unfair government policies and other injustices. An article in Cosmopolitan (What Did You…, 2011) reads:

Back in the spring, some members of Congress tried to cut Planned Parenthood's funding, which would have barred millions of women access to affordable health care. We were outraged, so we blogged, Facebooked, and Tweeted about the issue... and your response was incredible.

Just google it has become one of the most common phrases today. The verb google is a proprietary term, stemming from the Internet search engine Google. The term’s popularity and influence on society as a whole has earned google the distinguished honour of being named Word of the Decade by the American Dialect Society (2010) in 2010. The American Dialect Society (2010) and Collins English Dictionary (Google, n.d.a) define the term as to search the Internet using a search engine, while Oxford Dictionaries (google, n.d.b) defines it as to “Search for information about (someone or something) on the Internet using the search

124 engine Google:” According to the American Dialect Society and Collins English Dictionary, google means to search the Internet using any search engine, while Oxford Dictionaries states that the search engine Google must be used. Combining their own search engine and their own social networking website Google+, Google has established a platform where every piece of information, every private detail is available to the whole world. It is not surprising that people google their friends, co-workers and even doctors, as Anna Fels (2015) writes that “A friend of mine Googled her therapist and discovered that he was an accomplished singer — intensifying her already romantic and idealized transference.”

Unlike google, which is usually spelled with lower case, the verb Facebook has not yet changed its spelling. The social networking website Facebook is used by people, organisations and businesses looking to increase their like-count. The term like may be used as a noun and a verb. The verb like means to approve a comment, a picture or a video on a social networking website. If one can like something, then it is also possible to unlike something. The quest for likes has businesses searching for new ways of generating likes. One of the more successful methods is like-gating where individuals and businesses are giving out rewards for likes. Janet Aronica gives advice on how to generate Facebook likes. She (Aronica, 2011) writes:

A technique called "like-gating" is becoming more and more widely used as a way to generate new Facebook fans -- and not without some critics. The idea is that you offer exclusive content to those who 'like' your business' Facebook page, but only if they like the page. The problem? How are your prospects supposed to know if they want to like the page if they don't know what the content is like?

Two more terms which are associated with Facebook are (un-)friend and share. Both terms have acquired new meanings in light of social media. The term friend can be used either as a noun or a verb. Oxford Dictionaries (friend, n.d.) defines the noun as “A contact on a social networking website:”, while the verb means “Add (someone) to a list of friends or contacts on a social networking website:”

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Chris Matyszczyk (2016) writes that an Oxford University survey concluded that Facebook friends may not be actual friends and that only 4 out of 150 of them may be considered genuine friends. Rachel Bertsche (2011) discusses the issue of friending new people on Facebook. She writes:

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit the small thrill I got from this auto-notification. She friended me first! Now I didn’t have to worry about the appropriate waiting period, and I’ll admit I was more than a little pleased that she even remembered my name (or perhaps asked our mutual friend for it. Either way. There was thought involved.)

One of the more frequent activities on Facebook and other social media websites is sharing photos, videos, articles and status updates. Oxford Dictionaries (share, n.d.) categorizes share as a noun and a verb. The verb means to “Post or repost (something) on a social media website or application:”, while the nouns is defined as “An instance of posting or reposting something on a social media website or application:” (share, n.d.). According to Adi Robertson (2016) of The Verge, Facebook might drastically change in light of new virtual reality technology. She writes that “The company announced today that the new group will research ‘social VR,’ including ‘how people can connect and share using today's VR technology’ and the long-term possibilities if VR develops as a computing platform.”

Celebrities and other individuals who take advantage of social media may have a group of people called followers. These people follow celebrities, other people and their friends on Facebook, Twitter and other websites. The meaning of the verb follow is a result of a semantic shift. The verb does not mean to go behind or to act in accordance with instructions. In the setting of social media, the verb follow means to “track (a person, group, or organization) by subscribing to their account on a social media website or application” (follow, n.d.). The majority of websites, especially online editions of newspapers, magazines and many broadcasting companies end their articles or reports by asking their viewers to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. Even public institutions use them. One of

126 them is Michigan Civil Service Commission. They (Find us,..., n.d.) write, “For the latest updates on career fairs, internships, job postings, and more Career Services information, like us on Facebook/StateOfMichiganCareers or follow us on Twitter @SOMCareers.”

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking websites. User can send 140- character long messages called tweets. The tweets are accompanied by hashtags. The term tweet can either belong to the word class of nouns or verbs. The verb tweet means to post a message on the website Twitter, while the noun tweet is a posting on the website Twitter. Originally, tweet is a chirp of a bird. However, the word has acquired an additional meaning. The social networking website Twitter was created in 2006 and became popular in large part due to celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Amanda Bynes, Charlie Sheen and others, whose lack of foresight has resulted in many inappropriate tweets. The verb tweet also has a synonym in the form of twitter. The president of the USA, Barack Obama, was under fire in 2011 for supposedly not being born in the US. The White House responded by providing his birth certificate on Twitter. Hank Stuever (2011) writes:

As calmly as could be expected (which is to say, frantically and with little warning), the White House unveiled President Obama's actual Hawaiian birth certificate for all to upload and download, tweet and retweet, and examine with the forensic care learned from our endless exposure to detective shows.

If one can tweet, then another can retweet. The verb retweet means to forward a tweet. Tweets and retweets are posted and reposted by including hashtags. Merriam-Webster (hashtag, n.d.) defines the term as “a word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text (such as a tweet).” According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of this meaning is found in 2008. The sign # has been in use for decades in computer science. The term hashtag is a nominal compound of hash and tag and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. Many late-night television hosts use Twitter to engage their audience and make them feel part of the show. They send out tweets with

127 hashtags such as #yourfirstkiss or #theworstjobever. Politicians and even presidents use Twitter, as Karen Tumulty (2012) writes that “President Obama repeated that Twitter hashtag twice more during a Tuesday speech opposing an increase in student loan interest rates. For good measure, he even had his Chapel Hill, N.C., audience chant it back to him.”

Another term associated with the social networking website Twitter is the word trend. The word may be used as a noun or a verb. What is more, there are numerous examples of the derivative trending used as an adjective, e.g. #latenightshow was the number one trending topic. Because of Twitter, and people tweeting and retweeting, the word trend has acquired an additional meaning. Oxford Dictionaries (trend, n.d.) defines the noun trend as “A topic that is the subject of many posts on a social media website within a short period of time:” The verb trend was nominated for 2010 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (2010) and won the category of most likely to succeed or to become established in everyday speech. Social networking websites provide a platform for people to write whatever they please. It can occur that healthy and living people are pronounced dead or the deceased die again as was the case in June 2015 when the actress Rue McClanahan was reported dead, again. Andrew Buncombe (2015) writes:

When Rue McClanahan died five years ago, there was no little outpouring of sadness and affection.

People took to social media to pay tribute to the Emmy-winning actress, perhaps best known for playing the role of Blanche Devereaux in the classic The Golden Girls comedy.

Oddly, enough, five years after her death, Rue McClanahan was trending on Twitter and Facebook again.

Some videos on YouTube can gain such popularity that they are quickly spread from user to user. They become viral. The adjective viral has acquired a new meaning in the sense of images, videos and other information that are “[…] circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another” (viral, n.d.).

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According to Oxford Dictionaries (viral, n.d.), viral can also belong to the word class of nouns in the sense of images or videos which are quickly spread across the Internet. Viral videos and images can have a beneficial characteristic to them. Viral videos and images do not only show naked men running down the street and intellectually inept individuals forsaking the laws of gravitiy and trying to fly from their roofs, but also acts of kindness and humanity. One such example is presented in a Los Angeles Times article. Mary Forgione (2015) talks of a woman comforting someone else’s baby on a plane and their mother’s gratitude by writing “Garvison thanked Nyfesha Miller in a Facebook post on Sept. 24 that has gone viral, with almost 95,000 shares as of Wednesday.”

The video sharing website YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world. The proprietary term YouTube can be used as a verb according to Oxford Dictionaries (YouTube, n.d.b), while Collins English Dictionary (YouTube, n.d.a) classifies it as a noun and a verb. Both Oxford Dictionaries and Collins English Dictionary define the verb YouTube as to post a video to YouTube. Oxford Dictionaries adds another meaning in the sense of to “Search for or watch on YouTube”. Additionally, Collins English Dictionary defines the noun YouTube as “a website on which subscribers can post video files”. In an age where political correctness is ubiquitous, smartphones and fast internet connections must be its warriors. Smartphones have ensured that every incident, inappropriate behaviour or misspoken word is put on YouTube for the enjoyment or disgust of others. However, there are some who disagree with political correctness, as Kara O’Neill (2015) writes “a short film created by YouTube users takes a unique look at the future by satirising political correctness.”

5.4 Politics No other country mashes politics and pop culture like the USA. Presidents, governors and senators frequently appear on late night television and other talk shows. Therefore, this section presents those words which may have originated in politics, but have been used in print and broadcast media, as well as heard and

129 seen on late night television, in popular songs, comics, films, and other forms of popular culture. The presented words are listed in Table 5.

order presented words order presented words 1. crunchy con 6. Obamacare 2. death panel 7. Palinesque 3. fiscal cliff 8. refudiate 4. misunderestimate 9. waterboarding 5. NASCAR dads

Table 5: Words associated with politics

There are some who would call the term crunchy con an oxymoron. The noun crunchy con (Word Spy, n.d.) refers to “A conservative who is ecologically aware and has interests in natural products and organic food.” The adjective crunchy (n.d.) is used in the USA in the sense of “Politically liberal and environmentally aware:” The term crunchy con is a shortened form of the compound crunchy conservative. According to Word Spy (n.d.), Road Dreher created the term in National Review in 2002. Hank Stuever did a report on Road Dreher and his crunchy way of family life:

“Notice that I am literally barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen,” observes Mrs. Crunchy Con, and perhaps, she quips, she should have done her hair for the occasion like Phyllis Schlafly's. The li'l Crunchy Cons, boys ages 2 and 6, are out back in the warm Wednesday afternoon sun, making sculptures out of a bowl of ice cubes -- something constructive and home-schoolish, something very We're Not Watching TV. (Stuever, 2006)

In his report, Hank Stuever uses coinages such as crunchy culture, un-crunchy and crunchy con family.

Former Governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has made quite an impact on the political scene and especially late night television as well

130 as other satirical programming such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Because of her constant appearances on such television shows, her coinages are featured in this thesis. The first of her several entries is the morbid coinage, death panel. The nominal compound death panel belongs to the group of endocentric compounds, as the term refers to a panel of bureaucratic officials whose job is to decide who receives medical care and who does not because it would not be financially sound. The term is used as a scare tactic to persuade Americans to boycott Obamacare, which sought to provide universal healthcare. The term appeared in a Facebook post written by Sarah Palin in 2009 (Palin, 2009). It also won the American Dialect Society (2010) award for the most outrageous word of 2009. Even in 2013, the debate about death panels still raged, as Olga Khazan writes:

In a new survey of head and neck surgeons—the doctors who work on complex oral cancers and sinus problems—27 percent said they believe the Affordable Care Act creates death panels. Among those who said they were Republicans, 40 percent thought so. (Khazan, 2013)

Sarah Palin’s claim of death panels deciding who lives and dies has garnered her the distinction of being the first recipient of the Lie of the Year award by PolitiFact (Drobnic Holan, 2009).

The term fiscal cliff belongs to the category of politics and economy. It was originally coined by Walter H. Stern in the year 1957, but was popularized years later by Ben Bernanke in 2012 (Fox, 2013). Similar to Sarah Palin’s coinage death panel, fiscal cliff was a constant topic of late night television, as seen in a segment on The Colbert Report about fiscal cliff negotiations (Colbert, 2012). The term was also nominated for most likely to succeed by the American Dialect Society (2013) in 2012. Oxford Dictionaries (fiscal cliff, n.d.) defines the compound fiscal cliff as “A situation in which a particular set of financial factors cause or threaten sudden and severe economic decline”. The nominal compound belongs to the group of exocentric compounds. Hamish McRae writes about the fiscal cliff and how everyone was wrong in predicting the outcome. He writes:

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America is back. Do you remember how, 18 months ago, some self- confident economists predicted that it would be a catastrophe if the US went over the “fiscal cliff” and Congress forced it suddenly to cut public spending? Well, it did and the economy if anything grew faster. And, on the other side, an equally self-confident set of economists urged even sharper cuts in spending, without which the budget deficit would fail to close, leaving future generations with an ever-rising debt burden. Well, they were wrong, too. (McRae, 2014)

George W. Bush will be remembered for his two terms served as the President of the USA as well as for his unusual, creative and humorous coinages, eponymously known as Bushisms. One of his better known is the verb misunderestimate. The term is a blend of misunderstand and underestimate and was coined on 6 November 2000 (Top 10 Bushisms, n.d.). Misunderestimate may be defined as to make a mistake by underestimating someone. Mark Leibovich compares George W. Bush and the democratic senator Harry Reid by claiming that “One thing that Reid and Bush have in common is that they are easy to misunderestimate. And, to a degree, they both reinforce that, and thrive on it” (Leibovich, 2005). Many of Bush’s malapropisms are regular features in comedy series and on late night television, e.g. from Saturday Night Live to The Colbert Report.

The term NASCAR dads was created by the democratic pollster Celinda Lake (Chen, 2004). According to Word Spy (n.d.), the term was first used in 2002. The lexical item is a compound of the US racing series NASCAR and the plural form of the noun dad. It is used informally to refer to “A representative of a demographic category: a blue-collar, high school-educated father with relatively conservative values but without predictable political affiliation” (NASCAR Dad, n.d.). Every election, candidates hope to win by focusing on a specific demographic group. Jarrett Murphy writes:

Who will be the "soccer mom" — the suburban women considered key in President Clinton's 1996 victory over Bob Dole — of 2004? Will it be the Nascar Dads or the Office Park Dads? Could it be gun owners, evangelical Christians or Latinos? (Murphy, 2003)

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The term has different forms of spelling. The modifying part of the compound NASCAR may be spelled with capital letters or in lower case letters, while the head dads may be capitalized or written with lower case.

The following term is closely linked to Sarah Palin’s death panel. Palin’s coinage is a response to President Barack Obama reforming US healthcare with the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. The blend Obamacare is constructed from the eponym Barack Obama and care as in Medicare (Obamacare, n.d.). It was nominated for 2013 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (2014). It is a colloquial term used instead of the Affordable Care Act. Oxford Dictionaries (Obamacare, n.d.) adds another meaning. Obamacare can also mean “Health insurance made available through the Affordable Care Act”. President Barack Obama and his proposed healthcare reform were under fire from the beginning and not much has changed, as Elizabeth Harrington reports for Fox News. Harrington (2015) writes that “The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through ObamaCare, putting significant taxpayer funding ‘at risk,’ according to a new audit report.” The spelling of Obamacare may vary between Obamacare and ObamaCare. The success of the term is dependent on the political changes in the future. Nevertheless, Barack Obama and the term Obamacare will always remain synonymous with providing universal healthcare in the USA.

If there is a term that transcends borders between American politics and popular culture, it is the eponymous term Palinesque, which references Sarah Palin. Her contribution to American political discourse may be minimal, but her contribution to late night television might be priceless. The term is derived from the surname of Sarah Palin and the adjectival suffix –esque. In 2008, it was nominated as the most likely word to succeed by the American Dialect Society (2009). A contributor for Urban Dictionary, Bill O’Lielly, Han Shammity (2008), defines the adjective Palinesque as “Fake, Transparent, Blabbering Idiot” It is the top definition of Palinesque on Urban Dictionary. However, there is some bias in the definition and it should not be taken as absolute truth. A more appropriate definition of the adjective would be to resemble Sarah Palin in behaviour. Whenever a politician is caught on tape with some random remarks that do not

133 make sense, he/she is often characterised as Palinesque. Sarah Jones (2012) of PoliticusUSA wrote an article entitled “Romney Offers Palinesque Word Salad for Tax Plan and Gets Busted for Offshore Accounts” describing Mitt Romney’s answers for his alleged offshore accounts.

The last coinage which was popularized and is often credited to Sarah Palin is the verb refudiate. This New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2010 Word of the Year is a blend of refute and repudiate (Oxford Dictionaries, 2010). Oxford Dictionaries (2010) defines the verb as to reject, e.g. to refudiate a proposal. In a tweet sent out on 18 July 2010, she defended her coinages and even compared herself to Shakespeare. She wrote, “‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee'd up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!” (Palin, 2010). She may not be everyone’s favourite political figure, yet her influence on the English vocabulary is undeniable. Much of her fame can be attributed to her frequent inappropriate public remarks, but also to being a popular guest on numerous late-night television shows, e.g. her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014- ) in 2014 (The Tonight Show…, 2014).

The section ends with a CIA interrogation method which gained prominence after the 9/11 events, waterboarding. The derivative waterboarding is constructed form the verb waterboard and the nominal suffix –ing to denote a verbal action. Oxford Dictionaries (waterboarding, n.d.) defines the noun as “An interrogation technique simulating the experience of drowning, […].” The term won the American Dialect Society award for being the most euphemistic word of 2006 (American…, 2007). Such interrogation methods even put interrogators under enormous stress as Colin Freeman (2014) writes:

His [Abu Zubaydah] knowledge of imminent terror plots, however, was limited, and when he was unable to give his interrogators what they wanted, they began to waterboard him repeatedly, having already decided that interrogations would take “precedence” over his medical care.

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Although a strange choice to include in this thesis, it was often used in late night television, series, films and songs, and it was one of the reasons that there was backlash against the CIA and its interrogation tactics.

5.5 Fashion Following the latest trends in fashion is a must for film and music stars as well as anyone else trying to reach the upper echelons of stardom. Fashion is closely linked to popular culture. Supermodels such as Gisele Bündchen, Heidi Klum and Cindy Crawford are not only trendsetters in fashion, but also role-models to millions of women. What is more, musicians may also influence fashion with their world-wide fame. Madonna and Lady Gaga have torn down preconceptions of how women should present themselves fashion-wise. While many new trends start on fashion runways, musicians and film stars are normally the ones to influence the masses. Table 6 lists the words which are presented in this section.

order presented words order presented words 1. granny hair 4. murse 2. jorts 5. tramp stamp 3. meggings 6. whale tail

Table 6: Words associated with fashion One of the latest trends is dying one’s hair silver or grey, i.e. having granny hair. While famous designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier and Gareth Pugh have used this style with their models, it is celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Pink and Rihanna that have brought the style to the public’s attention (Moore, Gumuchian and Ireland, 2015). Granny hair may be defined as a trend where women dye their hair grey or silver in order to look fashionable. The term granny hair is a nominal compound and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. The trend is a blessing in disguise for those whose age has caught up with them. In essence, the new trend has brought such people new youth and rejuvenation. Greenaway writes:

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Whether you sprout the odd grey hair, spend hours eradicating them or let your silver locks flow free, the latest hair trend is good news for women everywhere.

Grey hair is on trend with silver hair lovers the world over posting images on social media under the hashtag #grannyhair. (Greenaway, 2015)

The term jorts has been in use since the 1990s (jorts, n.d.), but was only added to Oxford Dictionaries in 2013 (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). The term is a blend of jeans and . Oxford Dictionaries (jorts, n.d.) defines it as denim shorts. The term is primarily used informally in the USA. This item of clothing became a popular trend, and many celebrities are often caught on camera wearing them. The social news and entertainment website BuzzFeed lists the best jorts-wearing celebrities with the actor Paul Rudd coming in first (Gerstein, 2014). However, jorts has a negative connotation attached to it, as people who are seen wearing them are often ridiculed. In 2011, an NBA player even earned the nickname “Jorts” as Ben Cohen writes:

The 6-foot-10 center's nickname has been "Jorts" ever since he showed up for a recruiting visit to Kentucky three years ago in denim cut-offs. And now, before he has even played in an NBA game, he's bringing this staple of his summer wardrobe to New York. (Cohen, 2011)

Another piece of clothing which has made the transition from female clothing to male clothing are meggings, which is a blend of male and leggings (meggings, n.d.). The American Dialect Society (2013) named the term as one of the least likely words to succeed. There is a certain amount of stigma attached to wearing meggings as men are often mocked and humiliated. However, fashion designers are doing everything to eliminate the stigma. Bianca London of Daily Mail writes:

They were voted the biggest fashion faux pas of last year, but ‘meggings’ - that's male leggings - could become a male wardrobe staple this season.

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Two British designers have unveiled a range of meggings, which they hope will enable men to ‘both look great and feel comfortable in leggings.’ (London, 2014)

A lot of men carry their wallets, keys and phones in their pockets, which is often uncomfortable. While it is socially unacceptable for men to carry around purses, murses are quite different. Although murses are not much different from purses, they are designed for men. Murse is a purse for the fashion-conscious man and is a noun blend of man and purse. The term was nominated for 2006 Word of the Year award by the American Dialect Society (2007). There are many famous people who can be seen wearing a murse. Abbey Stone (n.d.) lists some of the more memorable ones, among them the musicians Seal and Kanye West and film stars Mickey Rourke and Terrence Howard. Abbey Stone (n.d.) describes rapper Lil Wayne’s murse, “Lil Wayne shows off his mini man purse – it’s really more of a change murse – courtside.”

Tattoos can be a popular form of expression. There are many forms of tattoos and every tattoo can be interpreted in various ways. A tattoo that can be found on a woman’s lower back is called a tramp stamp (tramp stamp, n.d.). According to Word Spy (n.d.), the first use can be found on Urban Dictionary. A user by the name of Vegas (2003) defines the term as “A tattoo above a woman’s ass crack.” The term is a very informal one. The nominal compound tramp stamp is constructed by way of rhyming reduplication from tramp and stamp, and belongs to the group of exocentric compounds. Women who have tattoos in the lower- back region are often viewed as promiscuous and easy targets for sex-hungry alpha males. Sara Stewart analyses the subject matter and attempts to put an end to the misogynistic attitude. She emphatically writes, “Here's what it's not: a ‘fuck me’ sign. […] And no one gets to tell me what my tattoo means or why I shouldn't have put it there” (Stewart, 2014). A study by French psychologist Nicolas Guéguen revealed that “the tramp-stamped were likely to be hit on by men and viewed as promiscuous” (Stewart, 2014). Stewart also created the term the tramp- stamped, which implies to women who have tattoos on their lower backs. The term the tramp-stamped is used as a plural noun.

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Another term associated with fashion is the term whale tail. The noun represents a fashion statement that is adored by some and frowned upon by others. The nominal compound whale tail belongs to the group of exocentric compounds. It is created as a result of rhyming reduplication. The term won the 2005 award for most creative word by the American Dialect Society (2006). The American Dialect Society (2006) defines the noun as “the appearance of or g-string underwear above the waistband of pants, shorts, or a . Also known as a longhorn.” There are many tabloid newspapers, social news websites, Internet news channels as well as reputable mainstream newspapers which never miss the opportunity to show the latest pictures of celebrities and their whale tails. Jess Cartner-Morley writes how the whale tail ended another fashion trend, the hipster trousers. She writes:

It was the muffin top that finally did it. That, and the whale tail. These twin crimes of modern fashion - the squeeze of squidgy flesh that rolls over the top of a low waistband like overrisen dough, and the T-shape of a G-string that surges into view when the wearer of low-rise jeans sits down - have finally succeeded in killing off that staple of modern wardrobes, the hipster trouser. (Cartner-Morley, 2005)

There are many synonyms which can replace the term whale tail, all of them used informally, e.g. , longhorn and buttock . ABC News has an article on their website titled “Celebrities Are Showing Off Butt Cleavage” (2009). As is the case with many slang and informal words, they can be substituted with other more or less formal and informal words.

5.6 Miscellaneous The words listed in this section are difficult to order as their origin and use transcend the borders between different aspects of modern American popular culture. Table 7 lists the words presented in this section.

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order presented words order presented words 1. app 14. man date 2. baby bump 15. podcast 3. binge-watching 16. prehab 4. blamestorming 17. selfie stick 5. blogebrity 18. slacktivism 6. bromance 19. staycation 7. celebutard 20. subprime 8. fauxhemian 21. Tebowing 9. flog 22. text 10. FOMO 23. sexting 11. FOGO 24. Twihards 12. humblebrag 25. Twilight mom 13. lumbersexual 26. Y2K

Table 7: Miscellaneous words The noun app won 2010 Word of the Year award by the American Dialect Society (2011). The term is a shortened form of the noun application. Merriam-Webster (application, n.d.) explains the word as “a program (as a word processor or a spreadsheet) that performs one of the major tasks for which a computer is used.” Merriam-Webster’s definition of the noun app lacks precision, as app is much more than just a word processor or a spreadsheet. App can be a game, a music- making app, a social media app or even a burping app. New apps with different concepts and innovative ideas can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store or Google Play. There are countless lists of best app for this and that. Business Insider (Tweedie, 2014) provided a list of the best news and reading apps in 2014, “We've already put together the definitive list of the best mobile apps out right now, but this collection focuses on the best news and reading apps around.” The scale of the word’s usefulness in today’s world can be measured by the number of Google search results. On 16 June 2015, a Google search yielded 3.080.000.000 entries. In the span of four months, the number has risen to 3.410.000.000 entries

139 on 30 October 2015 (https://www.google.si/?gws_rd=cr,ssl&ei=jcwzVuzNOMiqywOY94Bg#q=app).

The term baby bump may have originated in the U.K., but it was Bonnie Fuller, former Editor-in-Chief of US Weekly, who popularized the term in 2002 (Meyers, 2012). The term gained even more prominence because of Kate Middleton’s pregnancy being headline news. The nominal compound baby bump means “The protrusion of a pregnant woman’s abdomen, typically when it is first noticeable to other people” (baby bump, n.d.). Celebrities that are expecting are closely monitored by the media, the tabloids in particular. Meyers (2012) calls such stakeouts bump watches, which is similar to storm watches, where every slight change in the weather is reported in great detail. An example of bump watching can be found in US Weekly. Rose Walano (2015) writes, “Pregnant Kim Kardashian stepped out on Tuesday, June 9, in a skintight ensemble that revealed the tiniest of a baby bump.”

Internet video and music stream services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify and Pandora have changed media consumption forever. People were forced to wait for the next week’s episode of the latest hit series and listen to what was on FM radio. In the Internet age, people choose what, when and how much to watch and listen. Binge-watching is the latest trend in online on-demand streaming services. Oxford Dictionaries defines the verb binge-watch as to “Watch multiple episodes of (a television programme) in rapid succession, typically by means of DVDs or digital streaming” (binge-watch, n.d.). The word is patterned after the terms binge-drink and binge-eat (binge-watch, n.d.). Binge- watching is a nominal compound of the noun binge and the noun watching and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. John Lichman explains binge- watching the best. He writes:

Everyone, it seems, has the TV show they're working on. We've gone from expecting a new episode of our favorite show every week and appointment viewing to having a favorite show years after it first aired. Binge viewing is now the way of life. (Lichman, 2012)

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Binge-watching may be replaced with the synonym binge viewing. While binge- watching is a hyphenated compound, binge viewing is an open one.

Appointing blame when things do not go according to prescribed plans is too often the preferred course of action when instead of blamestorming, brainstorming would be more efficient. The noun blamestorming is patterned on the noun brainstorming. According to Word Spy (n.d.), blamestorming is a blend of blame and brainstorming. The earliest use is found in 1997, when Gareth Branwyn used it in a Wired article (Word Spy, n.d.). Oxford Dictionaries (blamestorming, n.d.) defines it as a “Group discussion regarding the assigning of responsibility for a failure or mistake:” One can also use the noun blamestorm, as evidenced by a Chicago Tribune article. Clarence Page writes about the aftermath of former Republican Rep. Paul Broun comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. “Fortunately, cooler heads at the Republican Governors Association conference last week in Miami were more interested in a brainstorm, not a blamestorm” (Page, 2008). Normally, for blamestorming to even take place, people need to be assigned the roles of blamestormers. Blamestormers are not beneficial to any organization as an article in ISHN states:

Blamestormers tend to lead their organizations on a vicious downward spiral of panic, falling morale, resignations, lack of focus on solutions and a lack of vision for the future because they are too focused on finding someone or something to blame for the past, […]. (Now’s no time…, 2008)

Many have started to turn to alternative sources for news information, e.g. independently-run news websites, YouTube channels and blog websites. Some bloggers have a large following and have the statuses of blogebrities. Blogebrity is a blogger that is famous and considered a celebrity. The noun is a blend of blog and celebrity. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the first known use of the word dates to 2005, appearing in a New York Observer article written by Ron Rosenbaum. Much like other celebrities, being a blogebrity can have its advantages as well as downsides, as Emily Friedman (2008) writes in her article “The Price of ‘Blogebrity’: A Cyber Stalker”. Blogebrities are often hired by the mainstream

141 media to write on their websites in order to increase their readership. One such blogebrity is Susannah Breslin, who has written for Newsweek, Salon, Slate and Variety among others (Breslin, 2011).

The term bromance is a popular topic explored in numerous films and television series, e.g. the Lethal Weapon (1987-1998) films, I Love You, Man (2009), and the series Scrubs (2001-2010), Friends (1994-2004) and Boston Legal (2004- 2008). The term is a blend of brother or bro and romance. According to a Wikipedia article (bromance, n.d.), the noun was coined in the 1990s by Dave Carnie in the skateboard magazine Big Brother. Due to the source, this fact should be taken with a pinch of salt. Contrary to the Wikipedia article, Oxford Dictionaries (bromance, n.d.) writes that the term originated in the early 21st century, while Merriam-Webster (bromance, n.d.) identifies its first known use in 2004. Both Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam-Webster define the term bromance as a close relationship between men, which is not based on any sexual contact. However, a bromantic relationship between men may have sexual innuendos, as is the case between the characters John “J.D.” Dorian and Chris Turk in the sitcom Scrubs. One of the best known bromances in literature is the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. As Lori Rackl (2009) writes, “You easily can picture Holmes and Watson sitting on either side of the fireplace, relishing their bromance and sipping brandy while Holmes puffs on his calabash pipe and chides Watson for a lack of attention to detail.”

In the world of high fashion, jet-setting models and reality TV extravaganza, celebutards are the norm rather than the exception. Word Spy (n.d.) defines celebutard as “A celebrity who is or is perceived to be unintelligent.” Word Spy notes that the earliest reference of celebutard dates to 2006. The noun celebutard is a blend of celebutante and retard. Perhaps the best known celebutard is Paris Hilton. In 2011, Paris Hilton teamed up with Charlie Sheen’s then wife Brooke Mueller. “Crazier things have happened: celebutard Paris Hilton is apparently involved in an upcoming reality show with Charlie Sheen's wife Brooke Mueller” (Sam, 2010).

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Hipsters can normally be distinguished by their looks, always wearing trendy clothes and going against the cultural mainstream. However, being a hipster has become the latest trend, thus hipsters have become a parody of themselves. Therefore, a new word is needed, fauxhemian. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the lexical item can be used as an adjective or a noun. Word Spy (n.d.) defines the adjective as “Relating to something that is bohemian in a fake or pretentious manner.” Word Spy (n.d.) states that the term is a blend of faux and bohemian. The word was nominated for 2010 least likely word to succeed by the American Dialect Society (2011). Hipsters or fauxhemians are traditionally not well liked as evidenced by their unwelcome appearance at the Coachella music festival in 2014. Allison (2014) writes:

Friday marked the kick-off of the world’s largest hipster costume party, the Coachella Jorts and Selfies Festival in Indio, CA, and I guess all those $20,000 cheques cleared, because celebrities have started swarming Coachella like rats to an open dumpster behind KFC. Now, technically Coachella doesn’t officially begin until the arrival of the First Lady of Fauxhemia, Vanessa Hudgens. But since it usually takes her hours, even days, to get ready (it takes time to dry hump the 70s), she usually let’s them go ahead and start without her.

The blogger, Allison, has identified Vanessa Hudgens as the First Lady of Fauxhemia, which is inhabited by all the hipsters and fauxhemians of this world. The word is built on the pattern of Bohemia. While Bohemia was an actual place, Fauxhemia is a metaphorical place representing every fauxhemian.

The Internet is a vast digital space of endless amounts of data and individuals searching for information, relaxation, sexual partners, and new ways of making money. The Internet is also a place where people can share their ideas and opinions via blogs. On occasion, fake blogs or flogs can be created to promote a product. According to Words Spy (n.d.), flog is “A blog that appears to be written by an individual, but is actually maintained by a corporate marketing department or a public relations firm.” The noun was nominated as one of the Words of the Year in 2006 by the American Dialect Society (2007). An example of a flog is a

143 blog by Dr John Watson (The Personal…, n.d.), a fictional character in the modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes titled Sherlock (2010- ) created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. Many companies create flogs in order to promote their products, but may come under fire by consumers. In 2006, Sony was one the companies which used underhanded marketing tactics. Noelle Weaver (2006) writes that “Sony has added its name to a growing list of flogs [fake blogs] including McDonald’s, WalMart and Lonely Girl 15, that are being called out by consumers.”

Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites can cause anxieties in people. One of them is the fear of missing out or FOMO. Word Spy (n.d) traces the first known use to the year 2004. However, the word was popularized with the help of social networking websites, where people are constantly bombarded with invites to parties, dinners, concerts, and other social gatherings. Oxford Dictionaries (FOMO, n.d.) defines the acronym as “Anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website:” The acronym was nominated for 2011 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (2012). Kristi Hedges analyses the effects of FOMO in her Forbes article. Hedges (2014) says that “most of us have a pretty bad case of FOMO, if we’re willing to admit it.” She continues that “it’s normal to feel this anticipatory regret from time to time. We may decide we need to stay home and rest on a Saturday night, but we’re a bit uneasy to miss the dinner party with our friends.” The opposite of FOMO is FOGO or fear of going out. Alexis Swerdloff (2015) of the New York magazine investigates what years of attending every social event and too many hours of binge-watching great TV series does to a person, specifically that a person can develop FOGO or fear of going out.

Comedians often find their material on social media websites. Famous or important people may tweet or post their accomplishments in a humble manner, but come off as bragging, hence the term humblebrag. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the term was first used in 2009. It was popularized by the comedian Harris Wittels (Word Spy, n.d.) and his humblebrag retweets of famous people. Word Spy (n.d.) defines humblebrag as “An ostensibly humble comment that also

144 demonstrates the person’s wealth, fame, or importance.” Humblebrag was nominated for 2011 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society (2012) and won in the category of most useful words of 2011. The compound humblebrag belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. Melissa Dahl writes of a study that researched humblebragging:

In another experiment, the researchers showed that humblebragging isn’t an effective way to get your point across when compared to straightforward bragging. To test this, they had 201 people either read a brag (“I get hit on all the time”) or a humblebrag (“Just rolled out of bed and still get hit on all the time, so annoying.”); each group was asked to rate how attractive they’d guess the person behind the statement was. The findings showed that people consistently rated humblebraggers as less attractive than the braggers — 4.34 out of 7 for the humblebraggers, as compared to 4.91 for the braggers (a significant difference, though admittedly not a huge one). (Dahl, 2015)

The quotation also produces the term humblebraggers, which is a derivate of the verb humblebrag and the nominal suffix –er, which forms agentive nouns from verbs.

Men have been searching for their masculinity ever since metrosexuals became a trend. While metrosexual is a “Heterosexual urban man who enjoys shopping, fashion, and similar interests traditionally associated with women or homosexual men” (metrosexual, n.d.), lumbersexual is the opposite. Denver Nicks defines lumbersexual as a man in search of his masculinity in this irrational world (Nicks, 2014). A lumbersexual does not only look manly in his flannel shirt and trimmed but he also projects manliness. The top definition of Urban Dictionary (Mateljan, 2008) defines lumbersexual as a “Metro-sexual who has the need to hold on to some outdoor based rugged-ness, thus opting to keep a finely trimmed beard.” The noun lumbersexual is blend of lumberjack and metrosexual. Holly Baxter of The Guardian explores the lumbersexual and questions whether lumbersexuals really project manliness or only a style of fashion. Baxter (2014)

145 asks, “Is there something fundamentally wrong with calling yourself rugged when you actually spent 20 minutes of your morning delicately trimming your beard in the bathroom mirror?” Baxter continues by comparing the metrosexual and the lumbersexual. “The metrosexual threw caution to the wind and started carrying his moisturiser round in his manbag; the lumbersexual now serves us up a hypermasculine aesthetic with an unashamedly ironic grin” (Baxter, 2014).

Bromances or non-sexual male relationships can be found on screen, and in the music industry, fashion industry, and field of technology, e.g. the characters Joey and Chandler in the TV series Friends and the bromantic relationship between rappers Kanye West and Jay Z. The culmination of a bromantic relationship is a man date. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the earliest use of the term can be found in The New York Times article written by Jennifer 8. Lee in 2005. The American Dialect Society (2006) named it as one of the most unnecessary words of 2005. The meaning of the compound man date is self-explanatory. It is a date two men go on to enjoy an evening of activities together, but without any sexual or romantic implications. The compound belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. Judy Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist, talks about the relationship between Jake Gyllenhaal and Matthew McConaughey. She says, “Matt and Jake are a perfect example of the new trend in male relationships. It`s been called man date, or the gro-man. As opposed to go-man. And this is the really kind of sexy guys being together, hanging out” (Kuriansky, 2007). Kuriansky adds another word for a man date, the gro-man.

The next lexical item did not originate in the USA, but half of the word does belong to the USA. The term podcast or podcasting was first used in the Scottish version of the newspaper The Herald in 2004 (Word Spy, n.d.). The noun podcast is a blend of iPod and broadcast. The first part of the word podcast, iPod, comes from the USA. The iPod is a portable media player that was created by the computer and software company Apple. According to Oxford Dictionaries (podcast, n.d.), a podcast is “A digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or portable media player, typically available as a series, new instalments of which can be received by subscribers automatically:” and may be used either as a noun or a verb. Podcasts have become very popular

146 among famous people, as they talk about their life stories and invite guests for interviews. Even traditional publishing institutions such as The New York Times plays podcasts on their website (Podcasts, n.d.), replacing some written content with podcasts. An article in The Washington Post reads:

And the Times is not actually replacing Klosterman with three writers. They’ll be doing a weekly half-hour podcast — in collaboration with podcast king Slate Magazine — adjudicating a handful of ethical issues. Their best stuff in the podcast performance will be filtered into a column that appears both online and in print. The team’s first podcast is already here, as Bloom, Shafer and Yoshino discuss fidelity, bill-paying, alleged credit-card fraud and other matters. (Wemple, 2015)

There are Hollywood film stars, musicians and socialites who are famous for their heavy partying and the use of illegal substances. Many of them are regular visitors of rehab clinics. To prevent future substance abuse, some choose to enter prehab. The term won 2010 most creative word of the year by the American Dialect Society (2011). Prehab has been in use for years mostly in sports medicine and rehabilitation, where it is a shortened word of prehabilitation, patterned on rehab which is an abbreviation of rehabilitate and rehabilitation (rehab, n.d.). However, there is also a possibility that the term prehab is a blend of the adjective preventive or pre-emptive and the noun rehab as Nancy Friedman writes on her blog (Friedman, 2010). Yet, it is perhaps more likely that the term prehab is a shortened form of prehabilitation, as it means to train in order to prevent future injuries. In a similar fashion, prehab can also mean a course where people go to prevent future addiction. Both senses have the pre-emptive or preventative aspect attached to them. One of the most frequent visitors of rehab is the actor Charlie Sheen, whose escapades are well documented. When rehabs fail, it is time for prehabs. As Rosemary Black (2010) writes, “Sheen's preemptive move was dubbed ʻprehabʼ by Web sites including Gawker.com, which jokingly called it ʻa new celebrity phenomenonʼ for ʻnon-addicts [who] need 'me' time, too.ʼ”

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The meaning of the endocentric compound selfie stick is quite transparent. It is a stick or a rod that holds a camera or a smartphone which is used to take a photograph of oneself. The device itself has been in use for decades, but the term was not created until the early 21th century (selfie stick, n.d.). TIME magazine has named the selfie stick one of the best inventions of 2014 (TIME Staff, 2014). Yet, selfie sticks are not all fun and games. They are extremely hazardous in sensitive environments such as museums, where priceless exhibits may permanently be damaged. Peggy McGlone of The Washington Post writes that “According to the Smithsonian Web site, selfie sticks are now included in the policy that prohibits use of tripods and monopods” (McGlone, 2015).

The digital age, especially the Internet, has changed the perception of how people view the world as well as their involvement in society. Long gone are the days of the 1960s protests for racial and social equality. People have changed the act in activism for slack as in slacktivism. People still want to make the world a better place. They just want to do it from the comfort of their cosy armchair. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the noun is a blend of slacker and activism and was coined by Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark in 1995. It was nominated for 2014 Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries (The Oxford Dictionaries…, 2014). Oxford Dictionaries (slacktivism, n.d.) defines the term as “Actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social media website:” Laura Seay discusses the topic of slacktivism and its impact on political and social changes. Seay writes:

Such forms of advocacy, particularly those related to social media, are often derisively referred to as “slacktivism” or “armchair activism.” These activities pose a minimal cost to participants; one click on Facebook or retweet on Twitter and the slacktivist can feel that he or she has helped to support the cause. (Seay, 2014)

A synonym for slacktivism is, appropriately, armchair activism. Many words ending with the suffix –ism have a corresponding word ending with the suffix –ist. Plag (2003, 187) calls this process cross-formation and it can be found in the

148 quotation by Laura Seay, where the noun slacktivist is present. The term slacktivist may also be used as an adjective as seen in the opinion-based article “Dana Milbank: How can America inspire the Slacktivist Generation to action?” (Milbank, 2014).

Another trend, which is a direct result of the digital age or perhaps of the economic recession, is the stay-at-home vacation or staycation. According to Word Spy (n.d.), Terry Massey is the first person to use the term, in 2003, although it is written with a hyphen, stay-cation. The term is a blend of stay and vacation. There are many websites offering advice for things-to-do on staycations. Steve Odland (2012) lists 16 suggestions, e.g. get the bike out, go shopping, take a nap, read a book or spend time with the children. There are also other types of vacations. Jayne Clark (2006) writes, “The mancation may or may not be one of the hottest trends in travel, as the publicists breathlessly claim. But the nomenclature caught on last summer when Vince Vaughn uttered the word in the movie The Break-Up.” Mancation is vacation for a group of men. If men can have mancations, then women could have wocations. Although the term wocation does not exist, it is a potential word, as it is patterned on the terms staycation and mancation.

The next word is associated with high finance and banking rather than with pop culture. However, the term was seen and heard everywhere from message boards and news blogs to newspapers and films. The word subprime even won the 2007 word of the year award by the American Dialect Society (2008). Merriam-Webster (subprime, n.d.) defines the adjective as “having or being an interest rate that is higher than a prime rate and is extended especially to low-income borrowers”. According to Merriam-Webster (subprime, n.d.), the word originated in 1995. The derivative subprime is constructed from the prefix sub- and the adjective prime. Subprime loans and the subsequent real-estate market crash ushered in the largest recession of the 21st century. Alan Zibel debates whether subprime loans are beneficial to borrowers. He writes, “The question of whether subprime loans such as car loans, credit cards and personal loans benefit consumers is hotly debated among economists and consumer advocates” (Zibel, 2015).

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In addition to being one of the best American football players, Tim Tebow is also an Internet sensation. His pose, in which he is kneeling on one knee and praying, is known as Tebowing. The noun is constructed from the eponym Tebow and the nominal sufiix –ing. The American Dialect Society (2012) nominated the term as one of the least likely words to succeed. According to Lindsay Jones, Jared Kleinstein coined the term in 2011 (Jones, 2011). Tebowing has swept the USA with an Internet website dedicated solely to it (Tebowing, n.d.). An ESPN report on Tebowing mentions Robert Downey Jr. “After Tebow led the Denver Broncos to a handful of fourth-quarter comeback victories last season, ʻTebowingʼ swept the country -- with actor Robert Downey Jr. even doing it at the Oscars” (Tim Tebow, 2012).

Mobile phones and especially smartphones have changed how people communicate. One reason for that is text messaging or texting. The noun texting is constructed from the verb text and the nominal suffix –ing. People can also text or they can receive texts, while people who text are called texters. The noun text is a text message, while the verb text means to send a text message. Word Spy (n.d.) writes that the first use of texting is found in 1999. The noun texter was nominated as most likely to succeed by the American Dialect Society in 2007 (American…, 2008). The term text has been in use since Late Middle English. However, it has acquired new meaning because of technological changes (text, n.d.). As a result of quick-paced societies and the need for urgency in the work place, people are forced to work on the go. Texting while driving has become one of the biggest problems of transportation safety. Teenagers are especially at risk, because of their inexperience and carefree way of thinking. Kelly Wallace’s article for CNN demonstrates the need for educating teenagers about the dangers of texting and driving. Wallace (2015) writes:

Barb Dunn was doing everything right. She talked to her then 16-year- old son Daniel repeatedly about the dangers of texting and driving and she rode with him as he drove to and from school while he had his learner's permit.

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But when I asked Daniel if he would ever text and drive, his answer stunned his parents -- and me.

“Probably,” he said, although he added he didn't think he would text while “driving on the highway.”

Politicians and other public figures must be extremely careful what they text, as inappropriate texts quickly become public knowledge. The politician Anthony Weiner was at a centre of a texting scandal as Fox News reports:

Anthony Weiner shrugged off calls Wednesday to withdraw from the mayoral race over a new sexting scandal, despite criticism from old colleagues, media calls for him to step down and newly released poll figures that gave him a moral character rating of 17 percent. (Anthony Weiner…, 2013)

Another term related to texting is sexting or the sending of salacious text messages. It is used as an adjective in the quotation, but is normally used as a noun. Sexting belongs to the group of blends, being constructed from sex and texting.

There are many people who adore the Twilight saga, i.e. the books and the films, which are based on the novels written by the American author Stephenie Meyer. The first term refers to the fans of the Twilight books and films, Twihards. Twihard is a blend of Twilight and die-hard as in a die-hard fan. (Twihard, n.d.). The term was nominated for 2010 fan word by the American Dialect Society (2011). The fandom of some Twihards can reach extraordinary levels as Ruth Styles (2015) writes, “Twihard: Cathy, a 54-year-old supermarket worker from Reading, has 69 Twilight themed tattoos.” While Twihard is a more general term, Twilight mom only refers to mothers who are fans of Twilight (Word Spy, n.d.). The term is a nominal compound consisting of Twilight and mom and belongs to the group of endocentric compounds. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the earliest example can be found in 2008. Carolyn Moynihan analyses women’s quest for imperishable youth and the role Twilight novels and films play in that quest. The saga has even caused marital conflicts as Moynihan writes, “‘Twilight Moms’

151 have websites where they confess their addiction to the love affair between high- school girl Bella Swan and the un-dead Edward Cullen, who is 104 going on 17. Some claim their obsession has caused marital strife” (Moynihan, 2010).

The section concludes with the abbreviation Y2K. The initialism Y2K stands for the year 2000 and references the millennium computer bug, which was supposed to crash all the computers in the world. It was a widely discussed topic in newspapers and television programmes, as fears of total chaos were high. Fortunately, the world did not end and life continued as normal. According to Word Spy (n.d.), the term was first used in 1998. Word Spy (n.d.) also lists the terms Y2K leap year bug and Y2K problem, which originated in the year 1996. Bob Berman (2012) writes, “The millennium celebrations were just OK, tempered perhaps by the Y2K fears. And a year later, the world pretty much ignored the official start of the millennium. What the heck happened? I thought we were a party planet.”

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6 Data analysis Language and culture are two sides of the same coin and complement each other in many ways. It has been shown that American popular culture is a multifaceted entity combining social, political, regional, economic, and gender aspects which influence the way language is used and created. In the way culture can impact language, so language can change the way culture is perceived. Similar to popular culture, American English language exhibits analogous traits of diversity. Therefore, the analysis of words is divided into three parts: an examination of word origins, word class and word-formation processes associated with new words. Such an analysis will clarify which form of popular culture is the most productive. It will also be shown which word class categories are the most numerous and explain which word-formation processes have been the most productive since the early 1990s. 141 lexical units will be analysed. There are some examples where a word may belong to different word classes, e.g. like may be used either as a verb or a noun. In such examples, only one entry will be included in the analysis, i.e. the word class with the earliest known use. However, even lexicographers and dictionary writers do not always agree on the earliest use of words and their word class category, hence different categorization of select words, e.g. autotune (n.) or Auto-Tune (v.), in Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam- Webster. A detailed examination of each lexical unit was carried out in the previous sections. Additionally, the derivatives of the examined words are not listed, e.g. the derivative follower (n.) from follow (v.) will not be included.

6.1 Word origins There are 141 lexical items which were presented in this M.A paper and are the subject of this analysis. American popular culture is intertwined with different spheres of American society, from broadcasting and the music industry to politics and technology. Therefore, it is problematic to say which aspect of American popular culture is the most productive linguistically. The majority of lexical items analysed in this thesis became quickly noticeable as they were created or popularized by successful television series, films, musicians, newspapers, social media websites and other celebrities. It was hypothesized that American television

153 series produce or popularize the highest number of new words. Based on the linguistic data used in the thesis, the hypothesis must be confirmed. Table 8 shows the presented words according to their origin:

Television Music Social Politics Fashion Miscellaneous Total series and media films 73 14 13 9 6 26 141 (51.8%) (9.9%) (9.2%) (6.4%) (4.3%) (18.4%) (100%)

Table 8: The number of words associated with American popular culture

As hypothesized, television and films are responsible for the largest number of newly created or popularized words, with almost 51.8% or 73 new words coming from television and films. There are a number of words which do not belong to any of the above categories or are borderline cases between different aspects of popular culture. There are 26 such examples. They have been included in the category “Miscellaneous”. This only underlines the fact that popular culture is intertwined with different forms of American culture. There are 14 words which can be attributed to music and 13 words which belong to social media. Additionally, there are 9 examples which belong to the area of politics. Fashion is in last place, only producing 6 new words. There are examples such as webisode and autotune where it is difficult to establish the category to which the word belongs. Both webisode and autotune come from the field of technology, but are widely used in broadcasting and the music industry. They are included in the category “Television series and films” and “Music” respectively. There are many similar examples; in such cases, use takes precedence over origin.

Also, it might be argued that politics does not belong in the context of popular culture. Yet, in the USA politics and popular culture are often inseparable entities. Politicians use late-night television programming and other popular forms of entertainment to spread their message, agendas and present themselves as ordinary, down-to-earth individuals, while broadcasting networks use them to increase their ratings. Some political figures are more successful and others are not, e.g. the former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin can frequently be seen on

154 late-night television and it is no wonder that her expressions are used in publications, on television and on social media websites. Therefore, terms such as death panel, Palinesque and misunderestimate are included in this M.A. thesis. The trend of politicians appearing on popular television programming is spreading around the world, including Slovenia. Even presidents are not immune to such publicity. In Slovenia, President Borut Pahor took part in the comedy show Na žaru (trans. Comedy Roast), where he was subjected to verbal ribbing by other celebrities and politicians (“Predsedniški Slog,” 2016). Although all in good humour, the question of whether politicians, and especially presidents, should take part in such activities is open to debate.

6.2 Word class There are nine word classes in English, i.e. nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles and interjections (Blaganje and Konte, 1998: 16). Pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and articles are not presented in Table 9, as there are no examples in the lexical data. It was hypothesised that the majority of newly created words belong to the word class of nouns. There are 141 lexical items presented in this M.A. thesis. There are some lexemes which have the same orthographic spelling, e.g. tweet belongs to the category of nouns and verbs. The noun tweet is constructed as a result of conversion from the verb tweet. Examples of conversion are not included in Table 9. They are analysed separately in section 6.3.6. The idiomatic expression make it rain is included in Table 9 and Figure 4 as a separate unit for a better illustration of the data. Table 9 shows the presented lexical items according to their word class:

nouns verbs adjectives adverbs interjections idioms total 96 22 16 1 5 1 141 Table 9: Word classes The majority of newly created words belong to the class of nouns, more than two- thirds to be precise. The following pie chart illustrates the predominant creation of nouns during word-formation processes:

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Word Class

1% 3% 1% 11%

16%

68%

nouns verbs adjectives adverbs interjections idioms

Figure 4: Word classes in percentages As hypothesised, the majority of newly created words belong to the group of nouns, i.e. 68% of new words. Verbs and adjectives account for 16% and 11% respectively. There are 5 new words which belong to the word class of interjections and 1 new word which belongs to the group of adverbs. Compared to nouns, verbs and adjectives, their number is small. Both of them together account for only 4% of all new words. There are some examples which are not completely new coinages but have acquired new meanings, e.g. not! acquired a new sense in the “Wayne’s World” sketches on Saturday Night Live (1975- ) and in the subsequent films Wayne’s World (1992) and Wayne’s World 2 (1993). The five interjections that were found are derp, skadoosh, schwing, yada yada and douche chill.

6.3 Word-formation processes Word-formation processes are analysed and discussed to establish which processes have been the most productive in the 21st century American popular culture. It was hypothesised that compounding produces most new coinages, with the majority of compounds belonging to nominal compounds. The analysis is based on the 141 new lexemes. Only the original derivatives are presented in the

156 overview of word-formation processes. The words which have undergone a secondary word-formation process are not presented in this overview of word- formational process, e.g. the verb friendzone is constructed as a result of conversion from the noun friendzone, hence only the noun is listed here, which is a nominal compound. In a similar fashion, derivatives such as blogger, podcaster and catfishing are excluded from this analysis. Additionally, the idiom make it rain is also not included. The following word-formation processes are to be found in the analysis: compounding, derivation, blending, clipping, conversion, abbreviations, eponyms, onomatopoeia, loanwords, root-creation and semantic shift. Word-formation processes are presented in Table 10:

compounding derivation blending clipping conversion 41 (29.1%) 20 (14.2%) 34 (24.1%) 6 (4.3%) 1 (0.7%) abbreviations eponyms onomatopoeia loanwords root-creation 4 (2.8%) 8 (5.7%) 3 (2.1%) 2 (1.4%) 3 (2.1%) semantic shift 18 (12.8%)

Table 10: Word-formation processes As expected, compounding produced most new lexemes. However, the number of new compound coinages is lower than presumed with only 41 out of 141 examples belonging to the class of compounds or less than 30% of all words. There are 34 words which are a result of blending and 20 terms which were created by the word-formation process of derivation. These three processes produce the majority of new lexemes, with 67% of new words being a result of compounding, blending or derivation. These 95 coinages were orthographically and semantically non-existent prior to their creation in American popular culture. The fourth most productive process is the semantic shift. There are 18 examples of pre-existent words that have acquired a new sense, e.g. cougar, catfish and fetch. Such words should not be treated as converted lexemes, as they have no or minimal semantic familiarity with the pre-existent words, i.e. originally, catfish is a kind of fish, while the sense of the new term signifies a person who puts on a fictional online persona to entrap an unsuspecting victim into a relationship.

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Surprisingly, there are only six examples of clippings. One might expect that clippings would occur more frequently, as languages tend to move towards simplicity. Other word-formation processes had little influence on the creation of new lexemes. Each produced less than 3% of all new terms. There are also two examples of loanwords. The term earworm is a calque from the German Ohrwurm, while in the case of Festivus, the word-formation process is not as clear. In section 5.1.2.1, it is stipulated that the verb might be a derivative of the adjective festive and the Latin suffix –ivus or a loanword from the Latin festivus. The term is listed under loanwords, because the adjective festive comes from the Latin festivus and is thus a likelier possibility. There are also three examples which are not formed from any pre-existent words but created from scratch. These neologisms are cromulent, schmoopy and kavorka. The number rises to six if the onomatopoetic words derp, skadoosh and schwing are also included in this category. Nevertheless, there are examples which have an unclear word-formation process and it is difficult to list them under a specific heading, e.g. Festivus, crunk, schmoopy and the Borg. Yet, for analytical purposes, these terms are listed under loanwords, blends, root-creation and clipped forms respectively, as there is a strong possibility that they are formed according to these word-formation processes.

Surprisingly, there is only one example of conversion, the noun smackdown is converted from the phrasal verb smack down. Conversion of nouns into verbs or verbalization is one of the more productive word-formation processes. Although this does not hold true for primary word-formation processes, there are examples of words such as viral, bling bling, friendzone, yada yada and others that are converted from adjectives, nouns and interjections respectively. There are 24 such converted terms. If one takes this number into account, conversion produces more new coinages than derivation. A more detailed examination of each word- formation process is presented in the following sections.

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6.3.1 Compounding The word-formation analysis in section 6.3 states that compounding is the most productive word-formation process. Almost one third of all words presented and analysed are created as a result of compounding. It was established that the majority of all newly created words belong to the word class of nouns. Table 11 presents compounds according to their word class.

nominal verbal adjectives adjectival total compounds compounds 39 / 2 41

Table 11: Word class of compounds There are 41 compounds in total. Only two of these compounds, the adjectival compounds spongeworthy and steak sauce, do not belong to nominal compounds. There are no examples of verbal compounds, which confirms the hypothesis that the majority of compounds belong to the group of nominal compounds. There are different ways of spelling compounds: they may be solid, open or hyphenated. There are many examples where the spelling is inconsistent with regard to compound spelling, e.g. the compound bling-bling may be hyphenated or it may be open as in bling bling, while the word Auto-Tune may be hyphenated or solid as in autotune. There is one example which has all three variants. The compound friendzone may be solid, open or hyphenated, as in friendzone, friend zone and friend-zone. It is not uncommon for words to have different forms of spelling if they have not been in use for a long period of time and have reached a large language base. There orthographic spelling may stabilize over time with more extensive use. However, words need to be seen in written form to have a chance of acquiring unified orthographic spelling. Yet, even words which have been in existence for more than a century are spelled differently, e.g. Jackson and Zé Amvela (2004: 164-165) provide the example landmine. According to Merriam- Webster (land mine, n.d.), the compound land mine has been in existence since the 1890s, but still has no uniform spelling.

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In addition, an analysis of compound types can be made to determine the most widely used word class of constituent parts in compounds. Table 12 illustrates constituent parts by their word class.

N V ADJ PREP INTERJ N 28 / 1 / / V 2 / / / / ADJ 8 / / / / PREP / / / / / INTERJ 1 / / / /

Table 12: Compound types according to their constituent parts Table 12 reveals that the majority of compounds belong to the noun-noun type, e.g. bucket list, man cave and selfie stick. The second most productive type is the adjective-noun compound type. There are 8 examples of this type, such as close talker, extreme makeover and sexytime. There are also two example of the verb- noun type, e.g. screwjob and slap bet, and one example of the noun-adjective type, spongeworthy. There is one compound that does not fit the pattern of compound types as provided by Plag (2003: 144). Table 13 is provided by Plag and lists the possible compound types.

Table 13: Inventory of compound types (Plag, 2003: 144) Plag’s inventory of compound nouns does not include the interjection-noun type which is present in the linguistic data. The example aha moment is of this type. However, there are five examples which perhaps should not be listed here, but should be classified separately as rhyme-motivated compounds, e.g. bling-bling, chick flick, tramp stamp, whale tail and yada yada. According to Bauer (1993: 212-213), such examples exhibit rhyme, which is the primary cause of formation. Additionally, there is also one example of neo-classical compounds, nanites.

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What is more, compounds may also be classified semantically. The central difference between the two is the position of the semantic head. Endocentric compounds have the semantic head within the compound, e.g. slap bet, selfie stick or man date, while exocentric compounds have the semantic head outside the compound, e.g. tramp stamp, spongeworthy or screwjob. There are 26 endocentric compounds and 14 exocentric ones. Moreover, there is also one example of an appositional compound, hipster doofus.

Within the group of compounds, there are also 6 examples of synthetic compounds, i.e. the examples binge-watching, close talker, high talker, long talker, low talker and wardrobe malfunction all belong to the group of synthetic compounds as the right-hand member has undergone the process of derivation prior to being used in the compound.

Compounding is a complex word-formation process as there are many grey areas, most of them concerning the semantic transparency or lack thereof. It was stated that there are 26 endocentric and 14 exocentric compounds. However, the line between the two is not as clear-cut as one might assume. At one end of the semantic continuum, the meaning is completely transparent, i.e. the meaning can be deducible from both constituent parts of the compound, e.g. selfie stick. A selfie stick is a stick for taking selfies. As the meaning is easily deducible from both parts, such compounds are appropriately called endocentric compounds. The other end of the continuum is occupied by exocentric compounds and semantic opacity, e.g. spongeworthy in the sense of to be sexually attractive. The meaning of the compound cannot be deduced from the constituent parts of the compound. Between the extreme ends of the semantic continuum, there are various degrees of transparency. There are examples that are difficult to categorize as their meaning is only partially deducible from the constituent parts. There is a large semantic space between complete transparency and complete opacity. It is here that examples such as bucket list may be found. Although bucket list refers to a list, it does not refer to a list of buckets, but rather to a list of things one wishes to accomplish before he/she dies. Therefore, it is not always possible to determine when compounds enter partial transparency or partial opacity to categorize them appropriately.

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6.3.2 Derivation The section on derivation analysis examines which affixes are used in creating new words. There are several points which will be addressed in this section. Are prefixes more productive than suffixes? Are there more class-maintaining or class-changing affixes? What type do the affixes belong to, e.g nominal, verbal or adjectival? There are 20 lexemes that will be analysed as derivatives. Even though there are 20 derivatives and 20 affixes, some derivatives are created from roots that have undergone multiple affixation, e.g. the noun truthiness. The root of truthiness is the adjective true, which acquires the nominal suffix –th to form the noun truth. The adjectival suffix –y is then added to the noun truth to form the adjective truthy. Truthy functions as the base of the derivative truthiness, which is constructed from truthy- + -ness to form the noun truthiness. What is more, the adjectives Palinesque, Oprahesque and Springeresque have the same adjectival suffix –esque, which will only be included once as it has the same meaning and function in all the examples. Table 14 shows affixes according to their word position and the number of times the affixes appear within the lexical data.

prefixes No. of suffixes No. of infixes No. of occurrences occurrences occurrences en- 2 -esque 3 -wait for 1 anti- 1 -ing 2 it- de- 1 -ed 1 em- 1 -en 1 mini- 1 -ery 1 re- 1 -ie 1 sub- 1 -ify 1 -igo 1 -izzle 1 -ness 1 -y 1 -zilla 1

Table 14: Affixes

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There are more suffixes than prefixes, i.e. 12 to 7, which perhaps is not surprising as suffixes are the ones which determine the word class of derivatives. The most productive affix is the adjectival suffix –esque, meaning similar to or in the style of. There are three derivatives which are formed by adding the suffix –esque, Palinesque, Oprahesque and Springeresque. Each example means in the manner of or in the style of the bearer of the name, hence to be Palinesque means to resemble the actions of Sarah Palin. Additionally, the nominal suffix –ing is used in two examples, waterboarding and Tebowing. The only other affix that is used on more than one occasion is the prefix en- and its variant em-. Although the same prefix, they are listed three times as their spelling varies. The prefix em- is used before words which start with b and p, meaning the phonological environment determines it. The suffix –izzle, which was popularized by rapper Snoop Dogg, can only be found once in the lexical data. Mainly used in AAVE, the affix –izzle is an extremely productive suffix which can be added to almost any word. It is for this reason that many derivatives are difficult to decode by the average language user, e.g. a dizzle can me a lot of things, from a dog to a deal. The meaning of the derivative can only be inferred from the context it appears in. Another affix which appears only once is the suffix –zilla. The suffix stems from Japanese films which feature a monster by the name of Godzilla. The suffix –zilla is used in the sense of large, dangerous and frightening and is mostly used with nouns (-zilla, n.d.)

There are 7 prefixes in total, with the prefix en- and its variant em- being used three times, while the prefixes mini-, sub-, anti-, re- and de- only appear once in the lexical data. Contrary to prefixes, there are 12 suffixes with –esque appearing three times and –ing twice, while the suffixes -izzle, -y, -ie, -ed, -ify, -igo, -ery, -ness, -en and –zilla are only used once in the lexical data. According to the data, one would be able to stipulate that the suffix –esque is the most productive affix as far as word-formation in American popular culture is concerned. However, due to the relatively low number of derivatives gathered, such a statement must be taken with caution.

Prefixation and suffixation are the most productive forms of derivation. Yet, they are not the only ones. While prefixes are added at the beginning of a word, suffixes are added in the final position. It is normally understood that English

163 words possess internal integrity, where affixes are added at the front or at the back of a word, but never inside a word. Nevertheless, there are examples where elements enter words, e.g. abso-bloody-lutely (Plag, 2003: 7) or dimfuckingwit (Bauer, 1993: 90). Infixes are comparatively unknown in English, although they do occur, as in the example legen-wait for it-dary from Section 5.1.2.3. The adjective legendary may take the infix -wait for it- to form legen-wait for it-dary.

Additionally, affixes may be divided between class-maintaining and class- changing affixes. Table 15 presents the list of affixes according to their role in forming word classes:

class-maintaining No. of class-changing No. of affixes occurrences affixes occurrences en- 2 –esque 3 anti- 1 –ed 1 de- 1 –en 1 em- 1 –ify 1 mini- 1 –igo 1 re- 1 –ing 1 sub- 1 –ness 1 –ery 1 –y 1 –ie 1 –ing 1 –izzle 1 –zilla 1

Table 15: Class-maintaining and class-changing affixes As a rule, prefixes tend to be class-maintaining and suffixes class-changing. The lexical data shows that there are more class-maintaining affixes than class- changing affixes. Every prefix and the suffixes –izzle, -ie, -ery and –ing belong to the group of class-maintaining affixes, while the suffixes –y. –esque, -ed, -ify, - igo, -ness, -ing and –en belong to the group of class-changing affixes. The suffix –ing may belong to class-maintaining as well as class-changing affixes depending on the base to which it attaches. Therefore, the noun Tebowing holds the class-

164 maintaining suffix –ing, while the noun waterboarding holds a class-changing suffix –ing, which attaches to the verb waterboard. Yet, the suffix –ing in Tebowing could be construed as a class-changing affix, as it changes the sub-class of the base from the proper noun Tebow into the concrete noun Tebowing.

Furthermore, the majority of derivatives have a nominal base, followed by verbal bases. There are only three examples of derivatives with adjectival bases. Table 16 shows the bases and the affixes which are attached to the bases:

nominal base No. of verbal base No. of adjectival No. of occurrences occurrences base occurrences anti- + dentite 1 de- + gift 1 en- + 1 (n.) (v.) eagled bride + 1 em- + 1 (adj.) -zilla (n.) biggen (v.) sub- + 1 jig + -y (adj.) 1 en- + gayify 1 prime mini- + me 1 (v.) (adj.) (n.) re- + gift 1 truthy + 1 Oprah + 1 (v.) -ness (n.) -esque (adj.) revert + 1 Palin + 1 -igo (n.) -esque (adj.) waterboard 1 self + -ie (n.) 1 + shit + 1 -ing (n.) -izzle (n.) Springer + 1 -esque (adj.) strategy + 1 -ery (n.) Tebow + 1 -ing (n.)

Table 16: Bases and affixes

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There are 11 nominal bases, 6 verbal and 3 adjectival ones. However, while Table 16 is a simple representation of the derivatives, it does not provide a detailed explanation, e.g. the examples Palinesque, re-gift and subprime are straightforward examples of what a base and an affix are, while the examples shizzle, engayify, embiggen and truthiness need further analysis. The noun shizzle is constructed from the noun shit and the suffix –izzle. The suffix –izzle can be attached to almost any free morpheme, be it a noun, a verb or any other word class. Yet, it always remains a class-maintaining affix. The verb engayify is classified as a deverbal verb constructed from the prefix en- and the verbal base gayify. Moreover, the verb gayify can further be deconstructed into the base gay and the suffix –ify. Thus, it can be said that the term engayify is constructed from the root gay and the affixes en- and –ify. Similarly, embiggen is constructed from the root big and the affixes em- and –en. Additionally, the root in truthiness is the adjective true which acquires the suffixes –th, -y and –ness. While the base of truthiness is truthy, the root of truthiness is true.

The list of compounds includes the example steak sauce. The term appears in the American comedy series How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014). While the example steak sauce is used as a compound in the series, coinages with sauce should be considered borderline cases between compounding and derivation. In the examples such as awesome-sauce, lame-sauce, nerdsauce and crazysauce, the lexeme sauce is used as a suffix –sauce, signifying intensity in the meaning of great and stupid (American Dialect Society, 2011). The difference between steak sauce and other examples, such as awesome-sauce and crazysauce, is in the structural integrity of the words. Affixes must be attached to the base of a lexeme, e.g. waterboarding and re-gift. Affixes must not be separated by an empty space, such as in king dom* (kingdom) or un like* (unlike), hence steak sauce should not be considered a derivative due to the empty space between the constituent parts.

In addition to the bases and affixes listed in Table 16, the word class of the derivatives analysed in this section can be deduced from Table 16. There are 10 nominal derivatives, 6 adjectival derivatives and 4 verbal derivatives. Unsurprisingly, there is a larger number of nominal derivatives compared to adjectival or verbal derivatives, as the majority of newly created and popularized

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words belong to the word class of nouns. What is more, Table 16 shows a full analysis of derivatives, i.e. it can be ascertained that Palinesque is a denominal adjective, mini-me a denominal noun, waterboarding a deverbal noun and truthiness a deadjectival noun.

6.3.3 Blending Blending can at times be an ambiguous word-formation process combining processes of compounding and clipping all in one. The analysis of blends focuses on morphological structure and semantic meaning. The first part of the analysis classifies blends into four groups (Bauer and Huddleston, 2002: 1636). Table 17 shows how blends are formed. Blends are categorised into four groups with the first group containing blends which are constructed from the first part of the first base, while the second part is used as a whole word. The second group consists of the blends that are created from the whole first part and the final part of the second base. The third group contains blends which are formed from the first part of the first base and the final part of the second base. The fourth group of blends consists of blends which are constructed from parts that have a common central part, which according to Bauer and Huddleston (2002: 1637) may overlap in spelling, but not in pronunciation or vice versa.

first part + No whole word + No first part + No Overlap No whole word . final part . final part . . holodeck 1 blamestorming 1 awsful 1 belieber (believe + 1 (hologram + (blame + (awesome + Bieber) deck) brainstorming) awful) bromance (brother 1 lumbersexual 1 blogebrity 1 belfie 1 or bro + romance) (lumberjack (blog + (bottom + Gleek (Glee and 1 + sexual) celebrity) selfie) geek) celebutard 1 mantasy (male + 1 dramality 1 (celebutante fantasy) (drama + + retard) misunderestimate 1 reality) crunk (crazy 1 (misunderstand +

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fauxhemian 1 + drunk) underestimate) (faux + flog (fake + 1 refudiate (refute + 1 bohemian) blog) repudiate) Obamacare 1 insanulous 1 slacktivism 1 (Obama + (insane + (slacker + activism) medicare) ridiculous) sexting (sex + 1 staycation 1 jorts (jeans + 1 texting) (stay + shorts) the possimpible 1 vacation) meggings 1 (possible + webcast (web 1 (male + impossible) + broadcast) leggings) webisode (web 1 mimbo (male 1 + episode) + bimbo) murse (man + 1 purse) shart (shit + 1 fart) twerk (twitch 1 or twist + jerk) Twihard 1 (Twilight + die-hard) wikiality 1 (Wikipedia + reality)

Table 17: Blend types The most productive type of blends belongs to the third type, which combines the first part of the first base and the final part of the second base. There are 34 blends in total and 14 blends belong to this type. The second type consists of 8 blends and the fourth type consists of 9 blends. While the first type, which combines the first part of the first base and the whole second part, consists of only 2 examples.

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Yet, there is one example that does not belong to any of the four types. The blend podcast consists of the nouns iPod and broadcast and takes the final part of the first base and the final part of the second base. The fourth type of blends combines bases which have an overlap in pronunciation and not in spelling or vice versa. The blend mantasy is an example of this type. The blend consists of the nouns male and fantasy. Although there is an overlap in spelling male + fantasy, the pronunciation of the letter a is different in male /'meɪl/ + fantasy /'fæntəsi/ to form mantasy /'mæntəsi/. Another such example is the blend bromance. While the blend belongs to the fourth type of blends, as it is constructed from the nouns brother and romance, there is an overlap in spelling. Yet, the pronunciation of the letters o differs between the two, brother /'brʌðə/ + romance /'rəʊmæns/ to form bromance /'brəʊmæns/. However, if the first part of brother is used informally in the clipped form bro, there would be a complete overlap between both bases, i.e. an overlap in spelling and pronunciation as bro is pronounced /'brəʊ/. Similarly to bromance, twerk may be formed in two ways, i.e. the first base may be twitch or twist while the second base jerk remains constant.

Semantically, blends may be categorized into two groups, i.e. the first group consists of blends, where the first base modifies the meaning of the second base, e.g. bromance, jorts and wikiality. The second group consists of blends where both parts provide the meaning of blends, e.g. misunderestimate, dramality and insanulous.

first base modifies the No. of both bases define the No. of second occurrences meaning occurrences belfie 1 awsful 1 belieber 1 celebutard 1 blamestorming 1 crunk 1 blogebrity 1 dramality 1 bromance 1 fauxhemian 1 flog 1 insanulous 1 gleek 1 misunderestimate 1 holodeck 1 refudiate 1

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jorts 1 shart 1 lumbersexual 1 the possimpible 1 mantasy 1 twerk 1 meggings 1 mimbo 1 murse 1 Obamacare 1 podcast 1 sexting 1 slacktivism 1 staycation 1 Twihard 1 webcast 1 webisode 1 wikiality 1

Table 18: Semantic classification of blends Table 18 shows that the majority of blends are semantically dependent on the first base to modify the second. There are 23 examples of this type, while there are only 11 blends where both bases provide the meaning. The distinction between the two can be explained by the blends belfie and misunderestimate. Belfie is constructed from the nouns bottom and selfie and can be explained as a kind of selfie, a selfie of one’s bottom. Contrary to belfie, misunderestimate is constructed from the verbs misunderstand and underestimate, thus misunderestimate means to misunderstand as well as underestimate. Blends of this type are similar in nature to copulative compounds such as poet-translator.

6.3.4 Abbreviations The process of forming abbreviations is similar in nature to the word-formation processes of blending and clipping. Whereas blending and clipping in addition to losing material also have prosodic changes, the formation of abbreviations only

170 takes place on the orthographic level. There are only four examples of abbreviations found in the lexical data. They are presented in Table 19:

acronyms No. of occurrences initialisms No. of occurrences FOMO 1 Y2K 1 FOGO 1 GCWOK 1 Table 19: Abbreviations Abbreviations may be divided into two subgroups, acronyms and initialisms (Stockwell and Minkova, 2005: 7-8). There are three examples of acronyms and only one example of an initialism. Abbreviations are formed by deleting material of bases and normally joining together the first letter of the bases, e.g. the acronym FOMO means fear of missing out, where the first letter of each word is combined to form the acronym. The second acronym GCWOK means gay couple without kids. There is only one initialism, i.e. the example Y2K stands for year 2000, where the letter Y stand for year and 2K for 2000. The main difference between acronyms and initialisms is the pronunciation, as acronyms are pronounced as normal words, e.g. FOMO /'fəʊməʊ/, whereas initialism are pronounced as single letters, e.g. Y2K is pronounced as /wʌɪ/, /tu:/, /keɪ/. Even though abbreviations may be spelled with lower case letters, such as asap, which stand for as soon as possible, the examples found in the lexical data are spelled with capital letters only.

6.3.5 Clipping Similar to blending, clipping applies to the omission of orthographic and phonetic material to form new words, but differs from blending in that it only involves one word compared to blending, where two or more words are involved (Plag, 2003: 121-122). The shortened words are semantic equivalents of the original base, e.g. app and application are semantically interchangeable. Yet, there may be stylistic differences between the original and the clipped form, e.g. doctor and doc are semantically the same; however, they are stylistically different as the clipped form

171 doc is normally used informally. The word-formation analysis of the clipped terms reveals that the examples belong to three types of clipped forms.

fore- No. back-clipping No. fore- and No. syncope No. clippings back- clippings the Borg 1 app 1 / freem 1 (cyborg) (application) prehab 1 (prehabilitation) kardash 1 (Kardashian) crunchy con 1 (crunchy conservative)

Table 20: Types of clipping Table 20 presents clipped forms according to their type. The most common type of clipping is back-clipping, which is in line with Bauer and Huddleston’s findings (2002: 1635), who claim that back-clipping is the most productive type. There are 6 examples of clippings and 4 belong to the type of back-clippings. The example crunchy con can also be labelled a compound, whose right-hand member has been shortened.

There is only one example of fore-clipping: the Borg is a shortened form of cyborg. The Borg are a fictional cyborg species in the Star Trek universe. One can stipulate that the name the Borg has been shortened from cyborg as both words are semantically equivalent. There are no examples of fore and back-clipping or ambiclippings. Additionally, there is one example which does not belong to any of the three aforementioned types, but applies the process of internal deletion. The example freem is created as a result of syncope, which is a process of “omission of sounds or letters from within a word, […]” (syncope, n.d.).

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6.3.6 Conversion There are 141 lexical items presented in the thesis. Out of those 141 items, there is only one example that is created as a result of conversion, i.e. the noun smackdown is converted from the phrasal verb smack down. In addition, there are some lexical items, such as friendzone and viral, which have the same orthographic spelling but are syntactically different. Table 21 shows those 23 examples and their conversion directionality:

a) N > V No. a) ADJ > N No. a) INTERJ > N No. b) V > N b) N > ADJ bling bling (a) 1 crunk (a) 1 derp (a) 1 catfish (a) 1 fauxhemian (a) 1 douche chill (a) 1 earworm (a) 1 viral (a) 1 yada yada (a) 1 friend (a) 1 bling bling (b) 1 friendzone (a) 1 gleek (a) 1 humblebrag (a) 1 mash-up (a) 1 podcast (a) 1 text (a) 1 twerk (a) 1 webcast (a) 1 like (b) 1 share (b) 1 trend (b) 1 tweet (b) 1

Table 21: Conversion types The most common method of converting words is to verbalize them, i.e. convert them from nouns into verbs. There are 12 examples of verbalization. The directionality in the opposite direction, i.e. nominalization, is not as productive, with only 4 examples attested. Additionally, adjectives may be converted into

173 nouns, as viral, fauxhemian and crunk prove, while there is only one example of a noun being converted into an adjective, i.e. the example bling bling. Bling bling can undergo two processes of conversion, i.e. from noun to verb and noun to adjective. What is more, interjections may be converted into nouns as indicated by yada yada, douche chill and derp. The directionality of conversion is not always a straightforward matter, as there are examples whose primary meaning and use are difficult to determine. Plag (2003: 108) provides four research methods, i.e. an etymological analysis, a semantic analysis of the relationship between the base word and the converted word, an analysis of the inflectional behaviour of the base and the converted form and finally to search for frequency of use. Verbalization of nouns is one of the most productive word-formation processes in recent times. The actor, comedian and writer Stephen Fry (Roger, 2011) states that verbalization should be embraced rather than rejected. The analysis of conversion finds that verbalization and nominalization for that matter are the most productive processes of conversation, which is not at all surprising given the large numbers of newly created nouns and verbs.

6.3.7 Eponyms based on personal names No. of based on commercial No. of occurrences brand names occurrences MacGyver 1 autotune 1 Mellencamp 1 Facebook 1 Kanye 1 google 1 the Rachel 1 YouTube 1

Table 22: Eponyms According to Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 15-17), eponyms are words which are based on personal names, geographical names, names from literature, mythology and folklore, and commercial brand names. Only eponyms based on personal names and eponyms based on commercial brand names appear in the lexical data.

Many new words are a result of a popular figure exhibiting features or actions which have never been seen before and need to be described. The most convenient way of naming them is to use the name of the person who displays those

174 characteristics. Indeed, there are four examples of eponymous words which are based on personal names. They are the Rachel, Mellencamp, MacGyver and Kanye. While the first three eponyms describe items and characteristics, the eponym Kanye describes an action. The Rachel is a kind of hairstyle, Mellencamp is an attractive woman who is older than a cougar and MacGyver is a handy person, while Kanye means to interrupt one’s important moment. Additionally, examples such as Palinesque, Springeresque, Oprahesque and Tebowing could be considered eponyms as they all incorporate traits and mimic actions of that particular person.

There are some companies whose products reach such mainstream popularity and use that their name becomes synonymous with the function their products provide. The names of such companies or products become generic words in a language. A few examples of proprietary terms becoming generic words in English are Kleenex, Xerox, Scotch tape and chapstick. Many proprietary terms come from the field of technology. There are four examples of proprietary terms that can be found in the lexical data: autotune, YouTube, Facebook and google. All examples come from the field of technology, which further exemplifies a close relationship between technology, especially digital technology, and American popular culture. All four examples are used as nouns in their primary function, but are often used as verbs as well, e.g. I uploaded a video on Facebook. and Facebook me later today. In the first sentence, Facebook is used as a noun signifying the social networking website and in the second sentence, Facebook is used as a verb meaning to contact on Facebook. YouTube and autotune function in the same manner as Facebook. Although the terms Facebook and YouTube are capitalized, in due time their spelling might change in the same way that google and autotune are spelt with lower case letters.

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6.3.8 Semantic shift Polysemy is the central term which will be discussed in this section. According to Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 147), “polysemy refers to a single word with several different meanings.” The examples analysed in this section are all polysemous words. There are 18 examples which are explained here. The examples analysed in previous sections are formed from pre-existing words to form new lexemes, e.g. a wardrobe malfunction and a staycation are new lexemes which have been formed from combining pre-existing words. On the other hand, examples provided in this section are orthographical equivalents of pre-existing words, but whose meaning has been altered, e.g. cougar is originally a puma. However, semantic changes of the term cougar have brought about a new meaning in the sense of a middle-aged woman who seeks younger men for sexual pleasure. The word is used figuratively in the new sense. Additionally, the term cougar in the sense of a middle-aged sex-hungry woman undergoes a status change. While cougar in the sense of a wild cat has a neutral status, the new meaning is often used pejoratively. Similarly, catfish undergoes the process of analogy. Originally, catfish is a kind of fish, while in the new sense catfish is a person who preys on innocent victims by adopting a fictional person on social media. Like cougar, catfish is also used figuratively, while the status of the word changes from neutral to pejorative.

The largest semantic shift has occurred because of technology, especially digital technology. Half of all the examples listed in this section have altered meanings because of a link to technology, most notably to social media. These examples are mash-up, follow, text, trend, catfish, viral, like, tweet, share, and friend. These term have undergone the process of specialization. Stockwell and Minkova (2005: 158) write that common terms can be used in scientific fields, e.g. the Internet and social media, where they acquire a specialized meaning, hence text can be any kind of a text written on a computer, a blank sheet of paper or a text in a book, but in the realm of mobile phones and smartphones text is a text message. In a similar fashion, tweet means to make a chirping sound, while in the realm of social media tweet means to post a message on the social media website Twitter.

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The adverb not! can be used in front of words and phrases to imply that the opposite is the case. In Wayne’s World (1992), the adverb not! is used after statements to negate the meaning of the whole statement. The new meaning changes the word’s status, acquiring a negative connotation. Pejoration of newly created or popularized words is a common trend and indicates a somewhat negative social attitude towards American popular culture and its products, whether artistic or linguistic. Not!, cougar and catfish are not the only examples of pejoration. The adjective legendary and its variant legen-wait for it-dary also undergo the process of pejoration. In its original meaning, the adjective legendary indicates something that is famous and celebrated. The meaning of legendary which is used in How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) suggests events that at first appear exciting, but are actually the opposite. Similarly, the verbs pimp, punk and lawyer are used in informal situations and may have pejorative meanings depending on the situation they are used in, e.g. the verb pimp in the sense of to make something look flashy or ostentatious normally has a neutral connotation among the car-customization scene, whereas in the upper-class white population the term is used negatively.

The examples double-dip and fetch acquire completely new senses which have no or very little semantic relation to their previous meaning. Double-dip used in Seinfeld (1989-1998) has nothing in common with the original meaning double- dip in the sense of to have two separate income sources or a double-dip recession. In Seinfeld, the verb double-dip is used in the sense of to take a crisp, dip it in sauce and repeat the action. The verb double-dip as used in Seinfeld is loosely linked, mostly from the modifier double, to other meanings attached to double- dip. Unlike double-dip, fetch has no semantic or syntactic relation to the term fetch in the meaning to bring back something for someone or any other meaning associated with the word fetch. In the film Mean Girls (2004), fetch is used as an adjective in the sense of cool and stylish.

Semantic shift occurs frequently as language users use existing words creatively in order to convey their messages. The success of the new lexemes depends on many factors, from linguistic to social. New lexemes need to have a logical link between the words and their meaning and need to be accepted by a large user base

177 to stand a chance of securing a place in the English language. To validate a word’s new meaning, it must by promoted by public figures, such as actors, comedians, musicians, journalists and politicians. They must promote the lexeme by using it during public appearances. Nevertheless, occasionally all it takes for a lexeme to find a place in the English language is to appear in the right place at the right time. Yet, lexemes can appear in the wrong place at the wrong time and are never heard or seen again, e.g. nonce words.

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7 Conclusion The thesis sought to describe modern American popular culture and its influence on the English language, vocabulary in particular. Specific aspects of modern American popular culture were described and analysed to provide a detailed examination of the different art forms that belong to American popular culture. The examination of specific art forms or artefacts, as Strinati (2004: XIV) names them, such as films, TV series, music, technology, social media, politics and fashion provided the core of the popular culture analysis. The study of these art forms and their influence on American life and culture was carried out in order to present the heterogeneity that is American popular culture. Campbell and Kean (2004: 12) define American popular culture as multi-faceted. American popular culture is multi-faceted, but it is also wrought with duality. It is low form, but it can also represent high form. It is a representation of trash culture, but it can also be admired for its diversity and colourfulness. It is for the masses, but can be appreciated by the elite. It is this duality that makes American popular culture a fascinating well of artefacts where every individual can find pleasure in being part of the pop culture experience. However, it is also the duality that makes American popular culture either despised or loved, as demonstrated by the example of Madonna and her provocative incorporation of religion and sex in her music and videos. In my opinion, American popular culture is one of the purest forms of culture, as it evokes feelings of joy, love, lust and pleasure, but also hatred, disgust and distaste. The multitude of emotions only strengthens the belief that American popular culture is one of the finest forms of culture, as the primary goal of any art form, low or high, is to evoke feelings. The only emotion that art must fear is indifference.

While popular culture is mostly produced by big corporations for the primary purpose of making profit, it can also be produced by independent individuals for the betterment of the self and American culture in general. The consumption of goods is the primary goal of consumerism in American popular culture. Thus, films, TV series, music and other forms are used as marketing ploys to sell products. However, the digital age has changed who can produce material, how material is produced and how it is made available to the general public. Large

179 broadcasting companies such as NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX no longer exert complete control over production and broadcasting of content. There are other privately run cable stations, such as HBO, Showtime and AMC, as well as Internet-based streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu, which produce and broadcast films and TV series. Additionally, video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, and social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide a platform where individuals can create, share, comment and participate in American popular culture. Celebrities must engage with their fans in order to stay relevant in the public perception. Failure to adapt to the digital age can cause great financial loss, as was most evident in the first decade of the 20th century, when, according to Campbell, Martin and Fabos (2012: 244-245), newspapers and other news companies saw a decline of more than 25% in their readership.

It was shown that American films, TV series, pop songs and fashion trends can change American life, culture and society. Pop culture artefacts represent a mirror of American society and a conduit for American society to reflect its attitude, actions and moral values. Language and society each represent one side of the same coin and if American films, TV series and pop songs can change society, they can also change language. The thesis presented a selection of words which have made a significant contribution to the English language and American society, e.g. the noun truthiness was used in a segment in The Colbert Report to elicit humour, but has outgrown its original purpose, as it is used as a mockery of political and journalistic speech for bending the truth to suit one’s purpose.

Yet, not all words receive as much public attention as the noun truthiness. The thesis presented specific characteristics that words need to possess in order to be adopted by native language speakers. According to McFedries (2004: 33-34), new words must fill a gap in the language, they must be easy to pronounce, easy to understand and they must be short.

Furthermore, words’ characteristics are important in vocabulary acquisition, but they are not the only deciding factor in making them a part of a person’s mental lexicon. Chesley’s (2011) work on vocabulary acquisition of hip hop words by

180 non-African American students concluded that engaging in television and music consumption can lead to improved vocabulary acquisition. Unlike an EFL environment, where intentional learning of new vocabulary is more successful, native speakers tend to acquire new vocabulary incidentally by consuming media. The most common methods of finding out the meaning of new words is by guessing from the context, checking the meaning in a dictionary or taking a word apart and deducing the meaning from those parts.

The M.A. thesis provided a detailed examination of linguistic terminology such as words, lexemes, morphemes, bases, affixes and word-formation. The emphasis was on word-formation, where different word-formation processes were presented. It was shown how specific word-formation processes are applied in forming new words, i.e. rules and examples were provided to clarify specific processes.

The empirical part of the thesis began with the presentation of the lexical data, i.e. words which were newly created or popularized in American popular culture in the last 25 years. There are a total of 141 words and phrases. The presentation was divided into subsections of films, TV series, music, social media, politics, fashion and miscellaneous terms. The presentation of the lexical data showed that there are many borderline cases between individual artefacts. It was also evident that technology plays an important part in modern American popular culture as there are many borderline cases, e.g. webisode and autotune. In such cases, the words were presented according to their function. Therefore, webisode was presented in section 5.1.2 and autotune in section 5.2. Words were presented according to their etymology, meaning, syntactic class, word-formation process and authentic use in other publications. Additionally, possible derivatives were included in order to fully illustrate the word’s semantic, syntactic and morphological characteristics.

Many examples were found in British newspapers such as the online edition of the Daily Mail. This reaffirms David Crystal’s (2004: 185-188) position of American English influencing the rest of the world and the dominant role it takes in World Standard Spoken English (WSSE).

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The analysis of the lexical data was divided into three parts, i.e. the analysis of word origins, which focused on the production of different art forms, the analysis of word class and the analysis of word-formation processes used. The analysis of art forms showed that more than half of all the examples have their origins in the film and television industry, with music and social media producing around 10% each. Politics and fashion produced only 6% and 4% of all new words. However, the results must be read with caution, as there are many borderline cases, which were included in section 5.6. There are 26 such examples or just over 18%.

Word class analysis confirmed the hypothesis that the majority of newly created or popularized terms belong to the word class of nouns. Two-thirds of all lexical items are nominal, with verbs having a share of 16% and adjectives 11%. Additionally, the lexical data also included five interjections, one adverb and one idiom. Other word classes were not represented in the lexical data.

The word-formation analysis investigated the productivity of word-formation processes. It was hypothesised that compounding is the most productive among the word-formation process. Indeed, this was the case. However, compounds attested for just under 30% of all lexical items. Compounding, blending and derivation combined produced almost 70% of all new coinages. The other word- formation processes which were found in the lexical data are abbreviations, clipping, conversion, eponyms, loanwords, onomatopoeia and root-creation. What is more, semantic shift played a significant role in creating new meanings.

The combination of American popular culture and English word-formation is a very productive one. Because modern American popular culture is diverse, colourful, rich and at times trashy and crude, it produces diverse lexical items and imaginative meanings. English word-formation processes are merely tools for creative, original and ingenious minds to come up with the most interesting, memorable and multi-faceted lexical items. Although some words, e.g. truthiness, autotune, webcast and catfish, have made it into respected dictionaries such as Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam-Webster, there are some terms, e.g. whale tail, Mellencamp and Tebowing, whose future is uncertain. Words whose meaning depends on cultural references have a lower chance of being picked up by

182 language users, as knowledge of certain cultural events is needed. As language is a dynamic process, it is difficult to predict which words have a better chance of remaining in people’s vernacular and which words will remain just a footnote of our time.

The thesis provides a closer insight into modern American popular culture and its influence on the English vocabulary. The presentation of new words was conducted from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. Yet, it must be remembered that a span of 25 years in linguistics is a very short time. Therefore, it was only possible to provide a glimpse into American popular culture and the English language.

Much of the new coinages and their spread are due to the popularization of social networking. Social networking has provided a platform for every person, native or non-native speaker of English, to coin new words and spread them among their followers. English on the Internet does not know nationality or other social, cultural and political factors. The only requirement is to create a word which is culturally relevant and sufficiently inventive in order to be adopted by the masses.

It was written that American popular culture is trash culture, consumerism at its finest and low form of art. Yet, it is art; it produces new forms of language and should, therefore, not be discarded and looked down upon as unnecessary and redundant, but should be embraced and incorporated as an element contributing to the diversity of the society. Heterogeneity of culture, society and language should be cherished and preserved, not dismissed. Stephen Fry (Rogers, 2011, 5:29-5:37) describes the situation best, “There is no right language or wrong language any more than there are right or wrong clothes. Context, convention and circumstances are all.”

The M.A. thesis presented and analysed many new lexical items. New meanings were provided and links between American popular culture and the English language were established. What is more, word-formation processes were explained in a detailed way in order to be easily comprehensible to those interested in English word-formation. Students and teachers of English who are interested in American culture will find an overview of popular culture

183 interesting, as many aspects of American life and culture might be useful in an English classroom. Much of language teaching is dedicated to vocabulary acquisition, therefore, the presented lexical items can be used as a source of informal vocabulary. Also, students can become acquainted with non-Standard English vocabulary and compare it with Standard English vocabulary. Additionally, translators will find cultural references attached to lexical items helpful when translating into their own languages. There are some lexical items, such as hipster doofus, which have not been included in trustworthy dictionaries, but are used in authentic texts, testifying to their existence among language users. Finally, the thesis provides a basis for further research of American popular culture and its influence on the English vocabulary in the 21st century. Future examination of lexical items would reveal which lexical items became standard, which non-standard, which remained and which fell into oblivion. Such an analysis would yield important answers concerning semantic shift, social acceptance and language users’ behaviour.

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8 Povzetek magistrskega dela Širjenje britanskega imperija pogosto velja za začetek premoči angleškega jezika v svetovnem merilu. Vendar pa so prve naselbine v Severni Ameriki s strani angleških kolonistov odigrale ključno vlogo pri prevladi angleškega jezika v dvajsetem in enaindvajsetem stoletju. Obe svetovni vojni sta bili prelomnici, saj so Združene države Amerike (ZDA) postale politična in vojaška velesila. Crystal (2004: 10) dodaja, da je ekonomska moč tista, ki vzdržuje premoč nad ostalimi državami. Jezik, ki se uporablja pri sklepanju poslovnih vezi, je pogosto angleščina. Poleg politične, vojaške in ekonomske premoči imajo ZDA tudi kulturno premoč. Jezik mednarodne glasbene industrije je večinoma ameriška angleščina. Veliko glasbenikov ne poje v svojem maternem jeziku, temveč se odloči za angleščino (npr. francoska glasbena skupina Pony Pony Run Run). Vpliv ameriške kulture je viden tudi v filmski industriji, kjer ameriški filmi dosegajo najvišje dobičke v evropskih državah, tudi do 80 odstotkov vsega dobička (Campbell, Martin in Fabos, 2012: 411). Zaradi tega se izgublja avtohtona kultura in nastaja pojav homogene svetovne kulture.

ZDA so država priseljencev iz vseh krajev sveta: Evrope, Azije in Južne Amerike. Priseljenci so s sabo prinesli svojo edinstveno kulturo in jo pomešali z drugimi priseljenci, kar dela ameriško kulturo heterogeno na državni ravni in homogeno na svetovni. V magistrskem delu je predstavljen heterogeni pogled na ameriško kulturo. Predstavljenih je nekaj najpomembnejših dogodkov moderne ameriške popularne kulture in njihov vpliv na angleško besedje.

Glavni cilj magistrskega dela je opisati moderno ameriško popularno kulturo in novonastale besede, ki so nastale v zadnjih petindvajsetih letih. V ta namen so postavljene tri hipoteze, ki bodo testirane in na koncu tudi potrjene ali ovržene:

̶ največje število novonastalih besed oziroma neologizmov in besed s spremenjenim pomenom se pojavi v ameriških serijah; ̶ med vsemi besedotvornimi procesi je zlaganje (angl. compounding) najproduktivnejše. Poleg tega samostalniške zloženke predstavljajo večino zloženk;

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̶ večina novonastalih besed spada v samostalniško besedno vrsto. Pri tem so upoštevani vsi besedotvorni procesi (angl. compounding, derivation, blending, clipping, conversion, abbreviations, eponyms, back-formation) v angleščini. Magistrsko delo je razdeljeno na teoretični in empirični del. Teoretični del je nadalje razdeljen na dva dela. V prvem delu teoretičnega dela je opisana ameriška popularna kultura. Podana sta definicija ameriške popularne kulture ter njen pomen za ameriško prebivalstvo in druge angleško govoreče države. Ameriška popularna kultura je opisana z zgodovinskega vidika. Pri tem so opisane televizijske serije, filmi, glasba, politika, mediji in tehnologija. Naštete oblike so združene v eno celoto, ameriško kulturo. Predstavljeni so televizijske serije, filmi, glasbeniki, tehnološke inovacije ter klasični in elektronski mediji, ki so odločilno vplivali na oblikovanje ameriške popularne kulture in angleškega besedja.

V drugem delu teoretičnega dela je govora o nastanku besed. Besedotvorni procesi so predstavljeni in opisani. Jezikovni pojmi, kot so beseda, leksem, morfem in afiks, so podrobneje razloženi. Nove besede nastajajo dnevno. Vendar če ni govorcev, ki bi jih uporabljali, gredo te besede hitro v pozabo. V ta namen so predstavljene metode usvajanja novih besed in lastnosti, ki jih novonastale besede morajo imeti, da postanejo del vsakdanjega govora. Čeprav je veliko raziskav o usvajanju tujih besed, raziskave na področju usvajanja novih besed v maternem jeziku zaostajajo.

Glavni del magistrskega dela predstavlja empirični del. V tem delu so predstavljene novonastale besede, ki so se pojavile v moderni ameriški popularni kulturi od leta 1990 naprej. Za vsako novonastalo besedo so podani njen pomen, izvor besede, besedotvorni proces in primer avtentične uporabe v časopisih, magazinih, blogih in drugih virih. Besede so razdeljene glede na njihov izvor in primarno uporabo. Novonastale besede so razdeljene v kategorije televizijske serije in filmi, glasba, tehnologija, mediji in politika ter moda. Nekatere besede bi se lahko pojavile v več kategorijah (npr. webisode). V takšnih primerih je podana omemba. Nove tehnologije, predvsem tehnologije, povezane s spletom, so otežile kategorizacijo nekaterih besed, saj sta izvor besede in primarna uporaba različna.

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Beseda webisode (slov. televizijska oddaja, ki se predvaja na spletu) spada pod tehnološki termin, ki pa se primarno uporablja v zabavni industriji.

Novonastale besede smo iskali v korpusih (Corpus of Contemporary American English), klasičnih medijih (The New York Times, The Huffington Post), slovarjih (Oxford Dctionaries, Urban Dictionary), spletnih forumih in socialnih medijih. Zaradi boljšega razumevanja nastanka novih besed v ameriški popularni kulturi je predstavljena podrobna analiza besed in besedotvornih procesov.

Magistrsko delo se zaključi z glosarjem novonastalih besed. Vsaki besedi sta dodana besedna vrsta in osnovni pomen.

V magistrskem delu je uporabljenih več različnih metod. V teoretičnem delu prevladuje deskriptivna metoda za opis moderne ameriške popularne kulture. Poudarek je na opisu tistih oblik popularne kulture, posameznikov in dogodkov, ki so imeli pomemben vpliv na ameriško družbo in so bistveno prispevali k oblikovanju ameriškega načina življenja in angleškega jezika. S pomočjo strokovne literature so opisani postopki, kako nastanejo nove besede, njihove lastnosti in pogoji, ki so potrebni, da besede postanejo del posameznikovega mentalnega leksikona. Strokovna dela Inga Plaga (2003), Laurieja Bauerja (1993), Rodneyja Huddlestona in Laurieja Bauerja (2002), Roberta Stockwella in Donke Minkove (2005), Howarda Jacksona in Etienna Zé Amvele (2004) ter Norberta Schmitta (2008) predstavljajo temelj teoretične analize besedotvorja in usvajanja novih besed.

V empiričnem delu so predstavljene nove besede oziroma besede, ki so postale popularne v zadnjih petindvajsetih letih. Številni ameriški filmi, televizijske serije, pesmi, časopisi, socialni mediji in drugi viri so bili pregledani in raziskani z namenom, da se odkrijejo nove besede. Spletni iskalnik Google se je izkazal za zelo koristnega, saj pokaže iskane rezultate glede na njihovo pomembnost in pogostost. Vendar pa je treba rezultate jemati z rezervo, saj je Googlov poslovni model odvisen od plačljivih reklam. V magistrskem delu je predstavljenih in analiziranih 141 novonastalih besed in fraz, ki so bile naključno izbrane. Obstaja še več novonastalih besed, vendar bi magistrsko delo postalo preobsežno, če bi predstavili večje število besed. Nobena beseda ni bila izbrana zaradi specifične

187 pripadnosti določeni besedni vrsti ali katerim drugim kriterijem, temveč izključno zaradi pogostosti pojava v popularnih filmih, serijah, pesmih in socialnih medijih. Korpusi Corpus of Contemporary American English (b. d.), Corpus of Historical American English (b. d.) in British National Corpus (b. d.) so bili uporabljeni, da se ugotovi najzgodnejša uporaba besed. S pomočjo slovarjev Oxford Dictionaries (b. d.), Merriam-Webster (b. d.), Collins English Dictionary (b. d.) in drugih slovarjev smo opisali pomen novonastalih besed.

Na koncu so bile besede analizirane glede na etimologijo, sintakso in besedotvorje. Analiza novonastalih besed je dala odgovore, ali lahko hipoteze sprejmemo ali ovržemo.

Ameriška popularna kultura je zelo raznolik pojav. Da lahko podrobno opišemo povezavo med kulturo in jezikom, so potrebne različne vrste metod. Čeprav so v magistrskem delu besede, ki so nastale v zadnjih petindvajsetih letih (od 1990 do 2015), je nekaj primerov, ki so semantično povezani s starejšimi oblikami. Zaradi tega sta v magistrskem delu potrebni sinhrona in diahrona analiza.

Ameriška popularna kultura je kompleksna človekova dejavnost, ki vsebuje različne družbene, ekonomske, politične, verske in kulturne vidike. Mnogi gledajo na popularno kulturo kot na del potrošništva, kjer sta potrošnja ničvrednih izdelkov in maksimiranje dobička edino merilo uspeha. V magistrskem delu so obravnavane teme, kot so komercializem, potrošnja, televizija, glasba, tehnologija, moda in seks. Podrobnejši opis teh vidikov pokaže kompleksnost popularne kulture.

Ameriška popularna kultura že od nekdaj velja za nižjo obliko kulture. Strinati (2004: 19) navaja, da je ameriška popularna kultura predstavnik tistega, kar je slabega v kulturi. Springhall (1998: 160) dodaja, da boj za prevlado nad popularno kulturo med predstavniki kulture in moralisti poteka že od začetka devetnajstega stoletja. Začetek hollywoodskih filmov, predvsem gangsterskega žanra, je le poglobil boj za prevlado. Moralisti so tudi mnenja, da ostale oblike popularne kulture, kot so rock glasba, stripi, drzne televizijske oddaje, erotični glasbeni videi in nove tehnološke inovacije enaindvajsetega stoletja negativno vplivajo na mladino. Vendar pa Springhall (1998: 1, 109) trdi, da je popularna kultura

188 pogosto neupravičeno tarča napada. Glasbeniki, kot je Marilyn Manson, in filmi, kot je Child's Play (1988), se pogosto omenjajo pri napadih tradicionalistov, kadar je govora o zaščiti tradicionalnih moralnih vrednot. Springhall (1998: 160–161) trdi, da so nove oblike kulture in nova tehnološka odkritja tista, ki povzročajo strah pri starejših generacijah. Vendar pa se ameriška družba ne razlikuje veliko od drugih družb. Vse družbe imajo različne socialne skupine, kjer ima vsaka skupina svoja prepričanja, moralne vrednote, prizadevanja, družbeni položaj in mnogo izmed njih tudi lasten socialni dialekt. Socialne skupine, ki imajo gospodarsko in družbeno moč, naj bi imele največji vpliv na ustvarjanje popularne kulture. Vendar pa se je z vzponom spleta to spremenilo. Pametni telefoni, računalniške tablice in dostop do spleta so omogočili, da lahko vsak posameznik ustvarja, predeluje in izdaja lastne izdelke. To je zmanjšalo monopol bogatejših in vplivnejših socialnih skupin ter pripeljalo do fenomena, kjer tehnološki napredki soustvarjajo popularno kulturo.

Kljub temu še vedno prevladuje maksimiranje dobička. Campbell, Martin in Fabos (2012: 15) so zapisali, da zabavna industrija ustvari več kot 200 milijard dolarjev letno. Velika količina denarja je namenjena študijam, kaj ljudje radi gledajo, poslušajo in kupujejo. Kakovostne vsebine se zamenjuje z izdelki, ki prinašajo največ dobička. Plasma izdelkov v popularnih televizijskih oddajah (npr. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014–)) in filmih (npr. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)) postaja realnost. Maksimiranje dobička je v ZDA pripeljalo do oligopola, kjer samo nekaj podjetij dominira v zabavni industriji (Campbell, Martin in Fabos, 2012: 391). Vendar internetna podjetja, kot sta Netflix in Spotify, ki nudijo pretočne vsebine, kljubujejo večjim podjetjem in zastarelim poslovnim modelom.

Popularno kulturo lahko gledamo z več vidikov, kot umetniško obliko, potrošniško kulturo ali kot nasprotje visoke kulture. Hebdige (1998; povz. po Strinati, 2004: XIV) definira popularno kulturo kot skupino artefaktov. Artefakti so filmi, glasba, oblačila, televizijske oddaje in podobno. Popularno kulturo lahko delimo na različne dele, na primer ameriško, britansko, avstralsko, nemško itd. Ameriška popularna kultura se lahko deli na južno, severno, zahodno in vzhodno. Poleg regionalnih delitev so tudi socialne delitve. Belska in črnska ameriška

189 popularna kultura sta na trenutke zelo različni. Prav tako lahko delimo popularno kulturo glede na spol, na primer kulturo, ki jo ustvarjajo moški oziroma ženske.

Kot obstaja več vidikov popularne kulture, obstaja tudi več teorij. Frankfurtska šola govori o popularni kulturi kot stabilizatorju kapitalizma, medtem ko feministična teorija trdi, da je vloga popularne kulture, da deluje v dobro moških in v nasprotju z interesi ženskega spola (Strinati, 2004: XIV–XV).

Ne glede na različne vidike popularne kulture mnogo strokovnjakov analizira popularno kulturo kot produkt potrošništva, katerega glavni cilj je prodajati izdelke. Lanoue (b. d.: 2) je mnenja, da mora biti popularna kultura izrabljena, da mora biti ustvarjena za srednji razred. Oglaševalske agencije uporabljajo ankete in fokusne skupine za ugotavljanje potreb ljudi. Glede na ugotovitve se potem ustvarjajo vsebine. Strinati (2004: 10) piše, da se popularna kultura ustvarja kot industrijski produkt, ki se ga množično trži. Strinati nadaljuje, da se vsebine, ki ne prinašajo dobička, niti ne ustvarjajo.

Stacey Olster (2003) ter Campbell in Kean (2004) primerjata popularno kulturo s šundom. Olster (2003: 182–183) je mnenja, da se popularna kultura najbolje ponazori s sodnim primerom O. J. Simpsona leta 1995, kjer je bilo napisanih veliko knjig in posnetih dokumentarnih oddaj, še preden je bila sodba dokončna. Slast po hitrem zaslužku je imela prednost pred sodnim procesom.

Popularno kulturo je možno opisati kot šund in nizko obliko kulture kot sredstvo za prodajanje hitro in poceni narejenih izdelkov, katerih glavni namen je maksimiranje dobička, vendar je popularna kultura vedno na lovu, kako stare ideje, teme na ustvarjalen način pretvoriti v nove.

Elektronski in klasični mediji igrajo pomembno vlogo pri diseminaciji informacij, političnih nazorov, kulturnih trendov in novih jezikovnih uporab. Campbell, Martin in Fabos (2012: 419) opisujejo novinarstvo kot podjetništvo, ki je absolutno nujno v vsaki demokraciji. Klasični mediji so bili vedno pod pritiskom političnih, korporativnih in drugih vplivnih skupin. Neodvisno novinarstvo se je v ZDA razvilo šele v devetnajstem stoletju (Crystal, 2004: 91). Vpliv tradicionalnega novinarstva počasi in vztrajno pada. Nove oblike, kot so spletni

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časopisi Slate, Politico in The Huffington Post, pridobivajo na veljavi. Mlajše generacije se ozirajo za novimi viri informacij. Spletni blogi, YouTube oddaje in satirične novičarske oddaje so privlačnejši za generacije, ki so odraščale ob računalnikih. The Colbert Report (2005–2014) in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1996–2015) sta dve oddaji, katerih priljubljenost med mlajšimi generacijami je z leti rasla (Anderson in Gottfried, 2014). Tradicionalni novinarski časopisi in televizijski programi kljubujejo novim tehnologijam, tako da nudijo ugodnosti svojim bralcem in gledalcem. Eden izmed največjih časopisov na svetu The New York Times nudi naročniški paket, ki vsebujejo tiskan in elektronski izvod časopisa ter celoten arhiv njihovih člankov od leta 1851 naprej. Novinarska televizijska mreža CNN omogoča svojim gledalcem, da posredujejo posnetke in fotografije s prizorišča dogajanja, ki jih CNN nato objavlja na spletu ali predvaja na programu.

Ameriški filmi in televizijske serije so izredno priljubljeni po svetu. Crystal (2004:100) navaja, da je sredi devetdesetih let dvajsetega stoletja 85 odstotkov svetovnega filmskega trga pripadalo ameriški filmski industriji. Ameriški filmi so lahko preprosti, kot jih imenuje Kaufmann (2004; povz. po Campbell, Martin in Fabos, 2012: 197), ali pa predstavljajo najvišjo umetniško obliko ameriške kulture dvajsetega stoletja (Paglia, 1992: 19). Citizen Kane (1941), The Godfather (1972), Raging Bull (1980) in Schindler's List (1993) se štejejo med največje ameriške filme, ki so priznani tudi v tujini.

Ameriške televizijske oddaje imajo velik vpliv na ameriško kulturo, ameriški način življenja in angleški jezik. Vzpon televizijskih mrež, kot so NBC (National Broadcasting Company), ABC (American Broadcasting Company) in CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), je prinesel številne nove oblike televizijskih oddaj. Varietejske oddaje, kot sta The Ed Sullivan Show (1948–1971) in The Tonight Show Starring Johhny Carson (1961–1991), so pred male zaslone privabljale cele družine. Največjo gledanost so običajno imele humoristične serije. Humoristična serija I Love Lucy (1951–1957) je bila pionir tega žanra. Seinfeld (1989–1998) je verjetno najpopularnejša in najvplivnejša humoristična serija, ki je kadarkoli bila predvajana na ameriški televiziji. Seinfeld je vpeljal teme, ki se niso nanašale le na družinsko življenje in vrednote. Zgodbe so običajno imele zaplet in

191 rešitev, pri tem pa so se glavni liki naučili moralni nauk. Seinfeld je bil pri tem pionirski, saj se glavni liki iz svojih družbeno spornih dejanj niso ničesar naučili (Campbell in Kean, 2004: 275). Televizija v ZDA je pridobila na slovesu, saj se veliko filmskih igralcev odloča za preskok iz velikega na mali zaslon. Filmski zvezdniki, kot so Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson in Kevin Spacey, so dobili svoje televizije oddaje.

Konec dvajsetega in začetek enaindvajsetega stoletja je zaznamoval hitri vzpon resničnostnih oddaj. Oddaje, kot so Survivor (2000–), Big Brother (2000–) in Extreme Makeover (2002–2007), so dosegale visoko gledanost med gledalci.

Kot ima ameriška televizija različne žanre, tako jih ima tudi ameriška glasba. Glasba v ZDA se konstantno spreminja, predvsem zaradi tehnološkega napredka in sprememb v samih žanrih. Največ sprememb je vidnih v pop glasbi. Pop glasba vsebuje elemente bluesa, countryja, rocka, jazza, hip hopa in dance glasbe. V osemdesetih letih dvajsetega stoletja sta ameriška pevca Michael Jackson in Madonna dominirala na glasbenih lestvicah. V šestdesetih in sedemdesetih letih dvajsetega stoletja so glavni rock izvajalci prihajali iz Velike Britanije in ne iz ZDA. Skupine, kot so Led Zeppelin, The Clash in The Who, so imele velik vpliv na rock sceno. Kljub temu so ameriški rock izvajalci in skupine, kot so Jimmy Hendrix, The Ramones in Lynyrd Skynyrd, odločilno vplivale na razvoj ameriške glasbe.

Na sredi osemdesetih let dvajsetega stoletja se je na ulicah Los Angelesa in New Yorka pojavila nova zvrst ameriške glasbe, hip hop. Skupine, kot sta Public Enemy in N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitude), so opozarjale na revščino, diskriminacijo in nasilje nad mladimi temnopoltimi Američani. Ezgeta (2012: 140) izpostavi pomen hip hop skupine Public Enemy pri uveljavljanju rapa kot »glasbe s sporočilom«. Hip hop glasba je dominirala na glasbenih lestvicah vse do konca leta 2010. Glasbene izvajalke, kot so Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga in Pink, so vrnile pop glasbo na vrh glasbenih lestvic. Vendar pa novi pop vsebuje elemente hip hopa, dance glasbe in R&B (ritem in blues).

Tehnologija in popularna kultura sta tesno povezani in na veliko področjih tudi soodvisni. Filmski studii, glasbene založbe in razvijalci videoiger uporabljajo

192 najnovejše tehnologije pri ustvarjanju vsebin. Microsoft in Apple, tehnološka giganta, sta presegla tehnološke meje in postala del ameriške popularne kulture. Microsoft je najemal znane televizijske in filmske igralce pri oglaševanju svojih izdelkov (Campbell in Kean, 2004: 290), medtem ko so Applovi izdelki vedno veljali za modni dodatek (Jacoby Zoldan, 2015).

Družbena omrežja so popolnoma spremenila odnos med zvezniki in njihovimi privrženci. Družbena omrežja, kot so Facebook, Twitter in Instagram, so ustvarila virtualno središče, kjer lahko zvezdniki komunicirajo s svojimi privrženci. Večina te interakcije je namenjena promociji zvezdnikovih novih izdelkov, to je filmov in pesmi, ali samih sebe.

Tehnologija je integralni del popularne kulture. Podjetja, ki se ukvarjajo z ustvarjanjem popularnih vsebin, so odvisna od moderne tehnologije, kot so računalniki, pametni telefoni, računalniške tablice in splet. Nesposobnost prilagoditi se novim tehnološkim izumom in novim načinom uporabe medijev lahko pripelje do propada podjetja.

Ljudje tvorimo nove besede v kratkotrajnih pogovorih, televizijskih in radijskih oddajah, spletnih forumih, romanih, časopisih in znanstvenih knjigah. Novonastale besede se imenujejo neologizmi. Plag (2003: 59–60) navaja tri razloge, zakaj tvorimo nove besede: za poimenovanje novih pojmov ali stvari (npr. a diss tweet), zaradi sintaktične prekategorizacije, da skrajšamo informacijo (npr. to chauffeur namesto to drive someone in a vehicle) ali da izrazimo odnos do nekoga ali nečesa (manjšalnice, kot so sweetie, honey ali duckling). Stockwell in Minkova (2005: 5) definirata neologizme kot besede, ki niso vezane na katerokoli besedo (npr. blurb).

Priseljenci, ki so prišli v ZDA v devetnajstem in dvajsetem stoletju, so s sabo prinesli svojo kulturo in svoj jezik. Izposojenke, kot so rodeo, cowboy in army, so postale del angleškega besedja. Jackson in Zé Amvela (2004: 14) pišeta, da je besedje sistem, ki se nenehno spreminja; besede izginjajo ali pa se jim spremeni pomen. Jackson in Zé Amvela (2004: 50) definirata besedo kot »nepretrgano enoto, ki je sestavljena iz enega ali več morfemov in ki se običajno pojavi v

193 frazah«. Plag (2003: 4) razloži besedo kot ortografski zapis, ki je sestavljen iz črk, pred in za katerim je presledek ali stavčno ločilo.

V primerjavi z raziskavami, kako nove besede usvajamo pri učenju tujega jezika, je raziskav o usvajanju novih besed v maternem jeziku relativno malo. Kljub temu se da potegniti vzporednici med usvajanjem novih besed v maternem in tujem jeziku. Chesley (2011: 1) trdi, da je gledanje televizije in filmov ena izmed produktivnejših dejavnosti usvajanja novih besed v maternem jeziku. Glavna metoda pri tem je ugibanje pomena iz konteksta. Takšna metoda je pri učenju tujega jezika težavnejša, saj morajo učenci tujega jezika poznati med 95–98 odstotkov vseh besed v besedilu, pesmi ali filmu, da lahko uspešno ugotovijo pomen novih besed (Nation, 2001: 23).

Pred obravnavo novonastalih besed ali besed s spremenjenim pomenom so opisani angleški besedotvorni procesi. Tvorjenka selfie je razdeljena na podstavo in obrazilo za lažjo ilustracijo besedotvornih procesov. Tvorjenka je sestavljena iz podstave self- in obrazila –ie. V angleščini velja splošno pravilo, da se pri derivaciji uporabljajo samo predpone (npr. re- + -gift) in pripone (npr. Palin- + -esque). Vendar pa so možne tudi medpone, predvsem v kletvicah (npr. abso- bloody-lutely).

Derivacija (angl. derivation) je proces, pri katerem se nove besede tvorijo z dodajanem afiksov. Tvorjenka je lahko sestavljena iz pripone, predpone ali pripone in predpone.

(1) predpona podstava pripona tvorjenka

re- take retake (slov. ponoviti)

sin -ful sinful (slov. grešen)

anti- govern -ment anti-government (slov. protivladno)

select -ive, -ity selectivity (slov. selektivnost)

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Zlaganje (angl. compounding) je eno izmed najproduktivnejših angleških besedotvornih procesov. Zloženka je tvorjenka, ki je sestavljena iz dveh ali več pomenskih besed (npr. slap bet, whale tail). Levi člen zloženke modificira desni člen zloženke (npr. art teacher; slov. učitelj likovne vzgoje). Desni člen zloženke določi besedno vrsto (npr. pickpocket; slov. žepar). Pickpocket je sestavljen iz glagola pick in samostalnika pocket, torej pripada tvorjenka pickpocket k samostalnikom.

Kot je razvidno iz primerov slap bet in pickpocket, se lahko zloženke pišejo kot ena beseda ali dve. Poleg tega so tudi primeri tipa land-mine, kjer med obema zložnima členoma stoji vezaj.

Konverzija je besedotvorni proces, kjer podstava spremeni besedno vrsto. Največ primerov konverzije v angleškem jeziku je tipa samostalnik/glagol in glagol/samostalnik. Plag (2003: 107–108) predstavi naslednje primere:

(2) the bottle (slov. steklenica) to bottle (slov. ustekleničiti)

(3) to guess (slov. ugibati) a guess (slov. ugibanje)

Ni vedno lahko ugotoviti, katera besedna vrsta je bila tvorjena najprej (npr. samostalnik the bottle ali glagol to bottle). Plag (2003: 108–111) predlaga nekaj metod za ugotavljanje smeri konverzije:

̶ izvesti analizo zgodovine angleškega jezika in na ta način ugotoviti prvotno uporabo besede; ̶ besede, ki izražajo nepravilno spreganje oziroma sklanjanje, so običajno vir konverzije; ̶ sprememba naglasa je znak konverzije; ̶ pogostost uporabe je dober pokazatelj, katera beseda se je pojavila najprej. Tvorjenke so v angleškem jeziku manj pogoste, ker so semantično kompleksnejše.

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V angleškem jeziku so pogoste tvorjenke, ki nastanejo s sklapljanjem dveh ali več besed. Prekrivanke (angl. blends) tvorimo tako, da dele besed krnimo in na to okrnjene dele sklapljamo. Primeri angleških prekrivank so:

(4) breakfast + lunch brunch (slov. zajtrk in kosilo obenem)

(5) breath + analyser breathalyser (slov. alkotest)

(6) motor + hotel motel (slov. motel)

Angleške tvorjenke condo (slov. stanovanje), phone (slov. telefon) ali flu (slov. gripa) spadajo v besedotvorno kategorijo krnitev. Podstava in tvorjenka se razlikujeta v zmanjšanem fonetičnem zapisu tvorjenke (Plag, 2003: 116).

(7) condominium condo (slov. etažno stanovanje)

(8) telephone phone (slov. telefon)

(9) influenza flu (slov. gripa)

Primer 7 predstavlja odzadnjo krnitev, primer 8 odsprednjo krnitev, medtem ko primer 9 predstavlja odsprednjo in odzadnjo krnitev.

Kratice v angleškem jeziku tvorimo podobno kot prekrivanke in krnitve. Pri vseh treh besedotvornih procesih krajšamo besedni zapis. V angleškem jeziku poznamo dve vrsti kratic:

(10) Central Intelligence Agency CIA (slov. Centralna obveščevalna agencija)

(11) radio detection and ranging radar (slov. radar)

Kratico CIA izgovorimo tako, da izgovorimo vsako črko posebej, medtem ko se kratica radar izgovori kot običajna beseda. Prav tako se lahko zapis med kraticami razlikuje. Kratica CIA je zapisana z velikimi tiskanimi črkami, medtem ko se kratica radar zapiše z mali črkami.

»Back-formation« je angleški besedotvorni proces, pri katerem pogosto pride do zmote, kaj je podstava in kaj tvorjenka. Primer edit – editor (slov. urejati – urednik) je primer »back-formation«. Marsikdo bi pomislil, da je to primer

196 derivacije, kjer podstavi edit dodamo pripono –or, vendar pa je v tem primeru ravno obratno. Beseda editor se pojavi v angleškem jeziku prej, zato besedi editor odstranimo pripono –or. Torej je editor podstava in edit tvorjenka.

Besede se skozi čas spreminjajo. Najpogostejše spremembe so na ravni pomena. Besedam se lahko pomen zoži ali razširi. Beseda girl (slov. dekle) je primer oženja leksikalnega pomena. Prvotno je beseda girl zajemala otroka kateregakoli spola. Skozi čas se je pomen zožil v današnji pomen otroka ženskega spola. Nasprotno zožitvi pomena je širjenje leksikalnega pomena. V angleškem jeziku je takšen primer beseda bird (slov. ptica). Prvotno je beseda poimenovala samo manjše vrsti perjadi. V današnjem pomenu beseda bird vključuje vse vrste ptic.

Prav tako lahko besede pridobijo višji socialni status ali ga tudi izgubijo. Melioracija ali izboljšanje socialnega statusa besede je opazna na primeru besede nice (slov. prijeten), ki je včasih pomenila neumen. Na drugem socialnem polu je pejoracija ali slabšalnost. Primer pejoracije je pojem silly (slov. trapast), ki je v preteklosti imel pozitivno konotacijo (vreden sočutja).

Novonastale besede lahko gredo hitro v pozabo ali pa postanejo pomemben del nekega jezika. Nove besede morajo biti videne in slišane, morajo biti uporabljene. Kljub temu morajo besede posedovati nekatere lastnosti, da jih govorci lažje vzamejo za svoje. McFedries (2004: 33–34) navaja štiri lastnosti: besede morajo zapolniti vrzel v jeziku, morajo biti lahke za izgovorjavo, lahke za razumeti in morajo biti kratke. Kadar so izpolnjene vse zahteve, je velika verjetnost, da bo beseda postala del vsakdanjega jezika. Ker je jezik dinamičen proces, lahko besede, ki so danes popularne, izgubijo družbeni pomen in jih zamenjajo nove besede.

V empiričnem delu so predstavljene tiste besede, ki so nastale oziroma postale popularne v zadnjih petindvajsetih letih zaradi vpliva ameriške popularne kulture. Besede so predstavljene glede na izvor, pomen, besedotvorne procese in avtentično uporabo. Besede, ki so se pojavile v modernih ameriških filmih, so: bucket list, catfish, chick flick, cougar, derp, fetch, mini-me, not!, shart, skadoosh.

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Največje število novonastalih besed prihaja iz ameriške televizije. Besede so razporejene glede na njihov izvor in abecedni vrstni red.

Seinfeld anti-dentite, double-dip, close talker, Festivus, high talker, hipster doofus, jimmy legs, kavorka, long talker, low talker, man hands, mimbo, regift, degift, schmoopy, spongeworthy, yada yada

Friends friend zone, the Rachel

How I Met Your Mother awsful, Desperation Day, GCWOK, insanulous, lawyer, legendary (legend-wait for it-dary), Mellencamp, revertigo, slap bet, steak sauce, the possimpible

The Colbert Report eneagled, engayify, freem, mantasy, truthiness, wikiality

Saturday Night Live schwing, strategery

Star Trek: The Next Generation the Borg, holodeck, nanites

World Wrestling Entertainment screwjob, smackdown

The Oprah Winfrey Show aha moment, Oprahesque

The Simpsons cromulent, embiggen

Druge televizijske oddaje

198 bridezilla, douche chill, dramality, extreme makeover, Gleek, MacGyver, man cave, pimp my ride, punk’d, sexytime, sideboob, Springeresque, warrior princess, watercooler moment, webisode, webcast

Ameriška glasba je pomemben del ameriške popularne kulture. Zato tudi ni presenetljivo, da pomemben del neologizmov najdemo v popularni glasbi. Te besede so: autotune, beliebers, bling-bling, crunk, earworm, jiggy, Kanye interruptus, Kanye’d, Kardash, make it rain, mash-up, shizzle (fo’ shizzle), twerk, wardrobe malfunction.

Družbena omrežja so postala naš vsakdan. Zvezdniki učinkovito izkoriščajo ta moderni medij za osebno komunikacijo s svojimi privrženci in promocijo svojih izdelkov. Kot pomemben del moderne družbe družbena omrežja prispevajo tudi jeziku. Besede, ki so analizirane v magistrskem delu in so tesno povezave z družbenimi omrežji, so: selfie, belfie, Facebook, google, (un-)like, (un-)friend, share, follow, tweet, hashtag, trend, viral, YouTube.

Politika in popularna kultura morda nimata veliko skupnega, vendar so politične figure, kot so George W. Bush, Sarah Palin in Bill Clinton, s svojimi nastopi in izjavami v javnosti odigrale ključno vlogo pri brisanju mej med politiko in ameriško popularno kulturo. Besede, ki so predstavljene v magistrskem delu, so: crunchy con, death panel, fiscal cliff, misunderestimate, NASCAR dads, Obamacare, Palinesque, refudiate, waterboarding.

Moda in popularna kultura sta dva prepletena pojma. Zaradi tega so predstavljene naslednje besede: granny hair, jorts, meggings, murse, tramp stamp, whale tail.

Obstajajo tudi besede, katerih izvor in uporabo je težko definirati zaradi prepletenosti različnih vidikov ameriške popularne kulture. Te novonastale besede so: app, baby bump, binge-watching, blamestorming, blogebrity, bromance, celebutard, fauxhemian, flog, FOMO, FOGO, humblebrag, lumbersexual, man date, podcast, prehab, selfie stick, slacktivism, staycation, subprime, Tebowing, text, sexting, Twihards, Twilight mom, Y2K.

Analiza predstavljenih besed je razdeljena na tri dele: analiza izvora besed, analiza besednih vrst in analiza besedotvornih procesov. Analiza izvora

199 novonastalih besed je pokazala, da ima več kot polovica neologizmov in besed, ki so postale popularne zaradi popularne kulture, izvor v ameriških filmih in televizijskih oddajah. Od 141 predstavljenih besed in fraz jih ima 73 izvor v filmih in televizijskih oddajah. Večje število besed ni bilo mogoče razvrsti v specifično kategorijo. Teh besed je 26, kar predstavlja drugo največjo skupino. Besed, ki imajo izvor v glasbi, je 14, medtem ko je besed, ki so povezave z družbenimi omrežji, 13. Zadnji dve kategoriji sta politika in moda. 9 besed ima izvor v politiki in 6 v modi.

Analiza besednih vrst je pokazala, da večina predstavljenih besed spada v samostalniško besedno vrsto. 96 besed je samostalnikov, kar je več kot dve tretjini. Glagolov je 22, kar je 16 odstotkov, medtem ko je pridevnikov 16 oziroma 11 odstotkov. Razmeroma veliko število je medmetov, teh je 5. Predstavljena sta bila tudi en prislov in en idiom.

Med vsemi besedotvornimi procesi, ki so predstavljeni v magistrskem delu in se uporabljajo pri tvorjenju predstavljenih besed, je zlaganje najproduktivnejši proces. Med 141 predstavljenimi besedami je 41 zloženk, kar predstavlja malo manj kot 30 odstotkov. Sestavljank in izpeljank je 20, medtem ko je prekrivank 34. Te tvorjenke predstavljajo tudi večino vseh novonastalih besed oziroma besed, ki so postale popularne zaradi ameriške popularne kulture. Poleg teh besedotvornih procesov so tudi primeri krnitev (6), konverzije (1), kratic (4), eponimov (8), onomatopejskih besed (3), prevzetih besed (2), novonastalih korenov (3). Pogosti pojav so tudi semantične spremembe. Teh primerov je 18.

Analiza zloženk razkrije, da je največje število samostalniških zloženk. Teh je 39, kar je pričakovana glede na veliko število novonastalih besed, ki so samostalniške besedne vrste. Poleg samostalniških zloženk sta tudi dva primera pridevniških zloženk, medtem ko ni nobenega primera glagolskih zloženk.

Najpogostejše obrazilo pri tvorjenju sestavljank in izpeljank je pripona –esque. Pripona je uporabljena trikrat, Oprahesque, Palinesque in Springeresque. Pripono uporabljamo, kadar izražamo podobnost z nekom ali z nečim, torej pomeni Palinesque imeti lastnosti oziroma ravnati podobno kot bivša guvernerka Aljaske Sarah Palin. Obrazili en- in –ing sta uporabljeni dvakrat, medtem ko so

200 ostala obrazila uporabljena enkrat. Vseh obrazil skupaj je 20. Pripon je več kot predpon, 12 proti 7. Čeprav v angleškem jeziku ni veliko medpon oziroma so zelo redke, je analiza besed razkrila eno medpono, –wait for it-. V angleškem jeziku predpone ne spremenijo besedne vrste podstave, h kateri se dodajo. To je potrdila tudi analiza predstavljenih besed. Pripone lahko spremenijo besedno vrsto ali pa jo ohranijo. Pripone –ery, -ie, -ing, -izzle, -zilla ohranijo besedno vrsto podstave, medtem ko jo pripone –esque, -ed, -en, -ify, -igo, -ing, -ness, -y spremenijo. Afiks –ing je poseben, ker lahko spremeni ali ohrani besedno vrsto podstave.

Prekrivanke se lahko tvorijo na štiri načine:

̶ prvi del prve besede in celotna druga beseda (holograph + deck holodeck) ̶ celotna prva beseda in zadnji del druge besede (drama + reality dramality) ̶ prvi del prve besede in zadnji del druge besede (jeans + shorts jorts) ̶ prekrivanje (pravopisno in glasovno) (Glee + geek Gleek) Največ primerov je tretjega tipa. Teh primerov je 14. 9 primerov je četrtega tipa, medtem ko je 8 primerov drugega tipa. Najmanj primerov je prvega tipa, samo 2.

Vseh kratic je 4: FOMO, FOGO, GCWOK in Y2K. Prve tri kratice se preberejo kot običajna beseda, medtem ko pri kratici Y2K izgovorimo vsako črko posebej.

Med vsemi predstavljenimi besedami je 6 primerov krnitve. 1 primer je odsprednje krnitve (cyborg the Borg). Največ primerov je odzadnje krnitve. Teh je 4 (npr. application app). Poleg tega je tudi 1 primer sinkope (freedom freem).

Konverzija je pogost pojav. V magistrskem delu je samo ena tvorjenka rezultat konverzije, samostalnik smackdown, ki je tvorjen iz fraznega glagola smack down. Poleg tega je 23 besed, ki so tvorjene iz zgoraj omenjenih besedotvornih procesov, vendar spadajo v različne besedne vrste, na primer samostalnik webcast (slov. spletna oddaja) je prekrivanka iz web in broadcast. Beseda je bila prvotno

201 uporabljena kot samostalnik, vendar se lahko uporablja tudi kot glagol v smislu predvajati spletno oddajo. Največ primerov konverzije je samostalnik v glagol.

Med predstavljenimi besedami je tudi 8 eponimov. 4 eponimi so poimenovani po osebah (MacGyver, Mellencamp, Kanye, the Rachel) in 4 eponimi glede na blagovno znamko (autotune, Facebook, google, YouTube).

Semantične spremembe se pogosto pojavijo v angleškem jeziku. Analiza besed je odkrila 18 primerov semantičnih sprememb. Primer semantične spremembe je samostalnik cougar (slov. puma). Prvotno je beseda opisovala srednje veliko žival. V novem tisočletju je prišlo do semantične spremembe. Beseda se lahko uporablja tudi za ženske srednjih let, ki iščejo mlajše moške za intimna razmerja. Medtem ko ima beseda v prvotnem pomenu nevtralno konotacijo, je dobil novi pomen negativno konotacijo.

Ameriška popularna kultura je kič, šund, potrošništvo in nizka oblika umetnosti. Vendar je kljub temu umetnost, ki tvori nove oblike jezika. Zaradi tega bi morala biti popularna kultura sprejeta kot pomemben del, ki prispeva k raznolikosti vsake družbe. V magistrskem delu so predstavljene nove besede, ki imajo svoj izvor v moderni ameriški popularni kulturi. Predstavljene so povezave med jezikom in kulturo, saj sta oba elementa soodvisna drug od drugega. Besedotvorni procesi so podrobno predstavljeni, da so lažje razumljivi tistim, ki imajo interes za učenje angleških besedotvornih procesov. Predstavljeni so različni vidiki ameriške popularne kulture in načina življenja. Študenti in učitelji angleščine lahko uporabijo predstavljene besede in opise ameriškega življenja pri svojem učenju in pouku. Veliko jezikovnega poučevanja je namenjenega besedju. Predstavljene besede se lahko uporabijo pri pouku kot vir neformalnega besedja. Poleg tega je prevajalcem omogočen vpogled v ameriško kulturo, kar jim bo olajšalo delo pri prevodih v svoj materni jezik. V magistrskem delu so predstavljene besede, kot je hipster doofus, ki niso vključene v priznanih slovarjih. Vendar je bilo pokazano, da so besede uporabljene v avtentičnih besedilih, kar kaže na njihov obstoj in uporabo v angleškem jeziku. Magistrsko delo predstavlja osnovo za nadaljnjo raziskavo ameriške popularne kulture, angleške morfologije in besedja.

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APPENDIX: Glossary aha moment (n.) – a moment of realisation (p. 105) anti-dentite (n.) – hatred of dentists (p. 79) app (n.) – an application; a software program used to perform specific tasks (p. 139) autotune (v.) - to eliminate mistakes in one’s voice (p. 115) awsful (adj.) – something that is both awesome and awful (p. 91) baby bump (n.) – protrusion of a woman’s abdomen signifying her pregnancy (p. 140) belfie (n.) – a selfie of one’s behind (p. 123) belieber (n.) – a fan of Justin Bieber (p. 116) binge-watching (n.) – watching multiple films or TV series in succession (p. 140) blamestorming (n.) – brainstorming to appoint blame (p. 141) bling-bling (n.) – flashy jewellery (p. 116) blogebrity (n.) – a person whose blog has made him/her famous (p.141) bridezilla (n.) – an extremely obnoxious bride-to-be (p. 107) bromance (n.) – a platonic relationship between two men (p. 142) bucket list (n.) – a list of things one wishes to do before he/she dies (p. 70) catfish (n.) – a person who pretends in order to deceive other people online (p. 71) celebutard (n.) – an empty-headed celebrity (p. 142) chick flick (n.) – a film primarily intended for women (p. 71) close talker (n.) – a person who talks to closely to the person he/she is talking to (p. 80) cougar (n.) – an older woman who seeks young men for sexual pleasure (p. 72)

251 cromulent (adj.) – appearing genuine when in actuality the opposite is the case (p. 106) crunchy con (n.) – an eco-friendly conservative (p. 130) crunk (adj.) – good or fine (p. 117) death panel (n.) – a panel of bureaucrats to determine who lives and who dies (p. 131) degift (v.) – to take back a gift you have given to someone (p. 86) derp (interj.) – meaningless speech (p. 72)

Desperation Day (n.) – the day before Valentine’s Day when women are depressed and to have sex (p. 92) double-dip (v.) – to dip a crisp in sauce and repeat the action again (p. 80) douche chill (interj.) – used to signal a verbal faux pas (p. 108) dramality (n.) – genre based in drama and reality (p. 108) earworm (n.) – a catchy song (p. 118) embiggen (v.) – to make it bigger (p. 106) eneagled (adj.) – to possess eagle-like characteristics such as majesty and powerfulness (p. 97) engayify (v.) – to gay it up (p. 97) extreme makeover (n.) – a complete makeover or a facelift of one’s face or belongings (p. 109)

Facebook (v.) – to post on the social networking website Facebook (p. 124) fauxhemian (ajd.) – someone/something that is pompously bohemian (p. 143)

Festivus (n.) – an alternative to Christmas; consumerism and religion are replaced with barbaric feats of strength (p. 81) fetch (adj.) – cool, awesome and stylish (p. 73)

252 fiscal cliff (n.) – an economic decline (p. 131) flog (n.) – a fake blog (p. 143) follow (v.) – to track a person or an organization on social media (p. 126)

FOGO (n.) – fear of going out (p.144)

FOMO (n.) – fear of missing out (p. 144) freem (n.) – freedom without the do in it (p. 97) friend (n.) –a person one is friends with on a social networking website (p. 125) friend zone (n.) – a situation where a person ends up when there is no chance of a romantic relationship with another friend (p. 89)

GCWOK (n.) – a gay couple without kids (p. 92)

Gleek (n.) – a fan of the television series Glee (p. 109) google (v.) – to search on the Internet (p. 124) granny hair (n.) – grey or silver hair resembling that of older women (p. 135) hashtag (n.) – a symbol that precedes a tweet (p. 127) high talker (n.) – a person who speaks in a high-pitched voice (p. 82) hipster doofus (n.) – a person who is a hipster and a doofus at the same time (p. 82) holodeck (n.) – a large room that can mimic objects and beings with the help of a holographic technology (p. 102) humblebrag (n.) – a statement that is supposed to sound humble, but comes off as bragging (p. 144) insanulous (adj.) – insane and ridiculous (p. 93) jiggy (adj.) – uninhibited (p. 118) jimmy legs (n.) – a condition where one shakes their limbs uncontrollably (p. 83) jorts (n.) – a piece of clothing combining shorts and denim jeans (p. 136)

253

Kanye (v.) – to interrupt an important speech (p. 119)

Kanye interruptus (n.) – a speech that is interrupted (p. 119)

Kardash (n.) – 72 days (p. 119) kavorka (n.) – untameable sexual attraction (p. 83) lawyer (v.) – to win an argument in such a manner that no rebuttal is possible (p. 93) legendary or legen-wait for it-dary (adj.) – plans that sound better than they actually are (p. 93) like (v.) – to approve a comment, a picture or a video on a social networking website (p. 125) long talker (n.) – a person who is long-winded (p. 84) low talker (n.) – a person who speaks quietly (p. 84) lumbersexual (n.) – a rugged, flannel-wearing metrosexual (p. 145)

MacGyver (n.) – a handy person that is ingenious with tools (p. 110) make it rain (idiom) – to throw money on people, especially in clubs (p. 119) man cave (n.) – a place of solitude for men (p. 110) man date (n.) – a non-romantic, non-sexual date between two men (p. 146) man hands (n.) – man’s hands, but on a woman (p. 84) mantasy (n.) – a male fantasy (p. 98) mash-up (n.) – a song that is made from two or more different songs (p. 120) meggings (n.) – male leggings (p. 136)

Mellencamp (n.) – a woman that is older than a cougar (p. 94) mimbo (n.) – a male bimbo (p. 85) mini-me (n.) – a mini-version of oneself (p. 74)

254 misunderestimate (v.) – to misunderstand and underestimate (p. 132) murse (n.) – a man’s purse (p. 137) nanites (n.) – tiny robots (p. 102)

NASCAR dad (n.) – a blue-collar conservative (p. 132) not! (adv.) – to negate the sentence it is used in (p. 74)

Obamacare (n.) – affordable Care Act (p. 133)

Oprahesque (adj.) – to possess Oprah-like characteristic (p. 105)

Palinesque (adj.) – to resemble Sarah Palin in behaviour (p. 133) pimp (v.) – to make it flashier (p. 111) podcast (n.) – an audio file of a series that can be listened to on the Internet (p. 146) prehab (n.) – precautionary rehab (p. 147) punk (v.) – to fool and play tricks on someone (p. 111) refudiate (v.) – to refute and repudiate (p. 134) regift (v.) – to take a gift you have received and give it to someone else (p. 85) revertigo (n.) – a condition where one reverts to his/her younger self (p. 94) schmoopy (n.) – a term of endearment that sounds too cutesy (p. 86) schwing (interj.) – a sound one makes when saluting an attractive woman (p. 100) screwjob (n.) – a plan that does not go according to plan, because one party changes the rules (p. 103) selfie (n.) – a self-portrait taken with a smartphone or a webcam (p. 123) selfie stick (n.) – a stick used for taking photos of oneself (p. 148) sexting (n.) – the act of sending salacious text messages (p. 151) sexytime (n.) – sex (p. 111)

255 share (v.) – to post or repost videos, pictures or comments on a social media website (p. 125) shart (v.) – to shirt and fart at the same time (p. 75) shizzle (n.) – shit (p. 121) sideboob (n.) – as seen from the side (p. 112) skadoosh (interj.) – a sound one makes as they perform a physical act with a finger (p. 75) slacktivism (n.) – activism performed from the comfort of an armchair and via social media (p. 148) slap bet (n.) – a bet where the winner can slap the loser of the bet (p. 95) smackdown (n.) – a fierce beating (p. 104) spongeworthy (adj.) – to be worthy of having sex with (p. 87)

Springeresque (adj.) – to possess Springer-like qualities such as vulgarity and crudeness (p. 113) staycation (n.) – stay-at-home vacation (p. 149) steak sauce (adj.) – great, excellent, the best (p. 95) strategery (n.) – a dubious strategy (p. 100) subprime (adj.) – an interest rate that is given to low-income earners. (p. 149)

Tebowing (n.) – kneeling on one knee and praying (p. 150) text (n.) – a short message that is sent from a smartphone or posted on social media (p. 150) the Borg (n.) – a cyborg-like race set out to assimilate other races (p. 101) the possimpible (n.) – the possible and the impossible (p. 96) the Rachel (n.) – a medium-length layered haired as worn by Rachel in Friends (p. 90)

256 tramp stamp (n.) – a tattoo just above a woman’s buttocks (p. 137) trend (v.) – to repost a topic repeatedly on Twitter (p. 128) truthiness (n.) – something that seems to be true, but is not (p. 98) tweet (v.) – to post a message on Twitter (p. 127) twerk (v.) – to dance provocatively while shaking one’s behind (p. 121)

Twihard (n.) – a die-hard fan of the Twilight saga (p. 151)

Twilight mom (n.) – a mother who is a fan of the Twilight saga (p. 151) viral (adj.) – describing a video on the Internet which is watched by many people in a short span of time (p. 128) wardrobe malfunction (n.) – having problems with one’s clothing and revealing one’s body parts in the process (p. 122) warrior princess (n.) – a strong, independent woman (p. 113) waterboarding (n.) – a torture technique where drowning is simulated (p. 134) watercooler moment (n.) – a talked about moment in a series (p. 113) webcast (n.) – an Internet broadcast (p. 114) webisode (n.) – an episode which is aired on the Internet (p. 114) whale tail (n.) – a thong that is not hidden under or trousers, but is visible above the waistline (p. 138) wikiality (n.) – reality based on Wikipedia (p. 99)

Y2K (n.) – year 2000 bug (p. 152) yada yada (interj.) – used in speech for repetitive and boring words (p. 88)

YouTube (v.) – to upload a video on the Internet website YouTube (p. 129)

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I Z J A V A

Podpisani Bojan Kašuba izjavljam, da sem magistrsko delo z naslovom The Influence of Modern American Popular Culture on the English Vocabulary (Vpliv sodobne ameriške popularne kulture na angleško besedje) izdelal sam, prispevki drugih so posebej označeni, uporabljeni viri in literatura so korektno navedeni.

Maribor, ______……………………….

(podpis)

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