[Lexicog] rules when it comes to latin word roots

[John Roberts]

Peter Kirk said:

> One good reason why this does not exist is that it is a mixture of Latin 
> and Greek roots. Such mixtures are usually avoided in English, although 
> there are exceptions like "television".
> 
> I would think that a prerequisite for building good new words from Latin 
> and Greek roots is a reasonable knowledge of Latin and Greek. That may 
> sound elitist, but there are enough people still who do have that 
> knowledge that words which don't follow the proper rules of these 
> languages are unlikely to be widely accepted.

I don't think so. If you go to a website like
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling215/NewWords/ 
which is a study on how new words are formed in English it says:
"The list below includes many different structural word formation types, including novel derivations, clippings, back formations, and compounding processes of various sorts. The words also exemplify a wide range of semantic/pragmatic phenomena such as metaphor, metonymy, euphemism, and eponymy."

I can't imagine that the coiners of such new words as "Globoboss" "Krunk" "Losingest" "Meanderthal" referred to their Greek and Latin etymologies.

But I hate it when I get behind a vehicular meanderthal.

John Roberts

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