[lg policy] How 'grammable' is your 'hoglet'?

[Harold Schiffman]

How 'grammable' is your 'hoglet'? Lucy Mangan casts judgment on your new
word submissions [image: Shutterstock 177762476]

Posted by Collins Language @ Friday 14 August 2015


I am apparently not allowed to share with you all the new swearwords that
spring forth unbidden but fully formed when your tyre blows on a country
road on the penultimate day of your holiday and takes half your nearside
wing with it, but can I just say they were inventive, full-blooded and
deserving of a wider audience than me, a small child in a car seat and a
dozen hedgerow sparrows.

Perhaps I can call what happened a vehicular "abend" now that mel999 has
introduced me to this term for the sudden and unwanted termination of a
computer programme (a combination of "abnormal" and "end"), an event that
of course has provoked more full-blooded swearing than any other in
recorded history. I shall try, anyway, especially if telling the story in
mixed company. I'll try and get the small child to do likewise, but he
seems slightly too thrilled with his new vocabulary gains to admit any more
just yet.

(I may, incidentally, nickname him the "hoglet", which Better_We tells me
is the name by which baby hedgehogs are known. I think I must once have
known this, but then I don't understand how I could have forgotten
something so terrifically appealing. Hoglet! Of course! Also - as a
sidenote to this sidenote - I feel they could be used more on the internet,
to give kittens a break. Could someone start hogletting Youtube and their
local Gif factory, please?)

>From AustinAllegro we have "Nicolabilia", meaning memorabilia regarding
Nicola Sturgeon. I am all for the commemoration in words, objets, plaques,
raised glasses of Irn Bru or whatever else of the woman's rise to
greatness, but can I just caution everyone that this needs pronouncing even
more carefully than it needs typing? Otherwise you will either end up being
sued for obscenity or taking delivery of some very niche memorabilia indeed.

The rather neat "inspionage" comes from basil2. It means the spying that
takes place between rival intelligence institutions within a country or
rival factions within a large organisation. I like it as an idea for
Mission Impossible 27, when Tom Cruise's joints are getting a little too
stiff to do the full international thing. He can go rogue within K-Mart's
R&D arm or something. Stay comfy.

Then there is the rather lovely “anthropophony” from BKrause, referring to
all the noises of the natural environment (other than those produced by
animals) – the wind in the trees, the rustle of the corn, the babbling of
the brook, the loud bang and “fwap-fwap” of a burst and then rapidly
shredding tyre… No, it’s a great word and if I ever go into the wretched
recovery-service-and-phone-signalless countryside I shall use it with
pleasure.

Finally we have two contributions from moneill. "Grammable", meaning worthy
of being posted on Instagram (taking the time to use the ‘Insta’ I presume
would defeat the whole ‘insta’ nature of the thing) and “boylesque” –
burlesque performed by men. This presents the intriguing notion of a film
about the subject starring Frankie Boyle and directed by Danny Boyle,
making it very Boylesque indeed – and, as they’re both Scottish, it could
be set in Glasgow, funded by the Caledonian arts council and become as fine
a piece of Nicolabilia as you could wish to see.

I’ll leave that excellent thought with you until next time.

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/words-and-language/blog/how-grammable-is-your-hoglet-lucy-mangan-casts-judgment-on-your-new-word-submissions,238,HCB.html




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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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