Part 3. Means of word-building

Part 1. STYLISTIC LAYERS OF WORDS

Exercises I.

The italicized words and word-groups in the following extracts are informal. Write them out in two columns and explain in each case why you consider the word slang/colloquial. Look up any words you do not know in your dictionary.

1. The Flower Girl. … Now you are talking! I thought you’d come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night. (Confidentially). You’d had a drop in, hadn’t you?

2. Liza. What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

Mrs. Eynsfordhill. What does doing her in mean?

Higgins: (hastily). Oh, thats the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.

3. Higgins. … Ive picked up a girl.

Mrs. Higgins. Does that mean that some girl has picked you up?

Higgins. Not at all. I don’t mean a love affair.

Mrs. Higgins. What a pity!(From Pygmalion by B. Shaw)

4. Jack (urgently): Mrs. Palmer, if I ask you a straight question, will you please give me a straight answer?

Muriel: All right. Fire away.

Jack: Is your mother divorced?

Muriel: Divorced? Mum? Of course not.

Jack (quietly): Thank you. That was what I had already gathered.

Muriel: Mind you, she’s often thought of divorcing Dad, but somehow never got round to doing it. Not that she’s got a good word to say for him, mind you. She says he was the laziest, pottiest, most selfish chap she’s ever come across in all her life. “He’ll come to a sticky end,” she used to say to me, when I was a little girl. “You mark my words, Mu,” she used to say, “if your Dad doesn’t end his days in jail my name’s not Flossie Gosport.”(From Harlequinade by T. Rattigan)

5. My wife has been kiddin’ me about friends ever since we was married. She says that … they ain’t nobody in the world got a rummier bunch of friends than me. I’ll admit that the most of them ain’t, well, what you might call hot; they’re different somehow than when I first hung around with them. They seem to be lost without a brass rail to rest their dogs on. But of course they are old friends and I can’t give them the air.(From Short Stories by R. Lardner)

Exercises II.

a) The italicized words and words-group in the following extracts belong to formal style. Describe the stylistic peculiarities of each extract in general and say whether the italicized represents learned words, terms or archaisms. Look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary.

1. “Sir,

in re Miss Ernestina Freeman

We are instructed by Mr Ernest Freeman, father of the above-mentioned Miss Ernestina Freeman, to request you to attend at these chambers at 3 o’clock this coming Friday. Your failure to attend will be regarded as an acknowledgement of our client’s right to proceed.”(From The French Lieutenant’s Woman by J.Fowles)

2. “I have, with esteemed advice …” Mr Aubrey bowed briefly towards the sergeant, … “… prepared an admission of guilt. I should instruct you that Mr. Freeman’s decision not to proceed immediately is most strictly contingent upon your client’s signing, on this occasion and in our presence and witnessed by all present, this document.”

3. Romeo … So shows a snow done trooping with crows,

As younder lady o’er her fellows shows.

The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,

And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight.

For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Tybalt. This, by his voice should be a Montague.

Fetch me my rapier, boy. What! Dares the slave

Come hither, cover’d with an antick face,

To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?

Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,

To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

(From Romeo and Juliet by W. Shakespeare, Act I, Sc. 5)

4. “… I want you to keep an eye on that speed. If you let the speed drop too low, it stalls – and falls out of the air. Any time the ASI shows a reading near 120, you tell George instantly. Is that clear?” “Yes, Captain. I understand.” “Back to you, George … I want you o unlock the autopilot – it’s clearly marked on the control column – and take the airplane yourself. … George, you watch the artificial horison … Climb and descent indicator should stay at zero.”(From Runway Zero-Eight by A. Hailey, J. Castle)

5. Mr. Claud Gurney’s production of The Taming of the Shrew shows a violent ingenuity. He has learn much from Mr. Cochran; there is also a touch of Hammersmith in his ebullient days. The speed, the light, the noise, the deployment of expensively coloured figures … amuse the senses and sometimes divert the mind from the unfunny brutality of the play, which evokes not one natural smile. (From a theatrical review).

6. Arthur: Jack! Jack! Where’s the stage manager?

Jack: Yes, Mr. Gosport?

Arthur: The lighting for this scene has gone mad. This isn’t our plot. There’s far too much light. What’s gone wrong with it?

Jack: I think the trouble is they have crept in numbers two and three too early. (Calling up to the flies.) Will, check your plot, please. Number two and three spots should be down to a quarter instead of full. … And you’ve got your floats too high, too. (From Harlequinade by T. Rattigan)

7. It was none other than Grimes, the Utility outfielder, Connie had been forced to use in the last game because of the injury to Joyce – Grimes whose miraculous catch in the eleventh inning had robbed Parker of a home run, and whose own homer – a fluky one – had given the Athletics another World’s Championship.(From Short Stories by R. Lardner)

b) Make up lists from the italicized words classifying them into: A. learned: 1) officialese, 2)literary; B. terms (subdivide them into groups and state to what professional activity each belongs); C. archaic words.

Exercises III.

Analyze the following neologisms from the point of view of neology theory and also from the point of view of their morphemic structure and the way they were formed:

to clip-clip AIDS coup

sound barrier to Vice-Preside boutique

to re-familiarize tourmobile sevenish

to de-dramatize non-formals to baby-sit

to scrimp and save fireside chat hide-away

coin-in-the-slot cashless society memo

We shall overcome to dish old wine in new bottles

to-ing and fro-ing multinationals the Commons

hyperacidity religiosity D-Day

face-to-face/tuition/ femme-fatalish to the wingtips

to river singer-songwriter beatnik

communication gap laundered money cheeseburger

Don’t change horses. to put a freeze on micro-surgical

SA out-doorsy medicare

Cold War self-exile public-schooly

brain-drainer movers and shakers Euroyuppie

Part 2. Home task: THE ETYMOLOGY OF ENGLISH WORDS.

Exercise 1. Subdivide all the following words of native origin into a) Indo-European, b) Germanic, c) English proper.

Daughter, woman, room, land, cow, moon, sea, red, spring, three, I, lady, always, goose, bear, fox, lord, tree, nose, birch, grey, old, glad, daisy, heart, hand, night, to eat, to see, to make.

Exercise 2. Identify the period of the following Latin borrowings; point out the structural and semantic peculiarities of the words from each period.

Wall, cheese, intelligent, candle, major, moderate, priest, school, street, cherry, music, phenomenon, nun, kitchen, plum, pepper, datum, cup, status, wine, philosophy, method

Exercise 3. Read the following extract. Which of the italicized borrowings came from Latin and which from French?

Connoisseurs of the song will be familiar with the name of Anna Quentin, distinguished blues singer and versatile vocalist. Miss Quentin's admirers, who have been regretting her recent retirement from the limelight, will hear with mixed feelings the report that she is bound to Hollywood. Miss Quentin, leaving for a short stay in Paris, refused either to confirm or to deny a rumour that she had signed a long-term contract for work in America

Exercise 4. Explain the etymology of the following words.

Sputnik, kindergarten, opera, piano, potato, tomato, droshky, tzar, violin, coffee, cocoa, colonel, alarm, cargo, blitzkrieg, steppe, komsomol, banana, balalaika.

Exercise 5. Think of 10-15 examples of Russian borrowings in English and English borrowings in Russian.

Exercise 6. Explain the etymology of the following words. Write them out in 3 columns: a) fully assimilated words; b) partially assimilated words; c) unassimilated words. Explain the reasons of your choice

Pen, hors d'oeuvre, ballet, beet, butter, skin, take, cup, police, distance, monk, garage, phenomenon, wine, large, justice, lesson, criterion, nice, coup d'etat, sequence, gay, port, river, loose, autumn, low, uncle, law, convenient, lunar, experiment skirt, bishop, regime, eau-de-Cologne.

Exercise 7. Study the following etymological doublets. Compare their meanings and explain why they are called “etymological doublets”.

1. captain-chieftain, canal-channel, cart-chart.

2. shirt-skirt, shriek-screech, shrew-screw.

3. gaol-jail, corpse-corps, travel-travail.

4. shadow-shade, off-of, dike-ditch.

Exercise 8. Classify the following borrowings according to the sphere of human activity they represent. What type of borrowings are they?

Television, progress, football, grapefruit, drama, philosophy, rugby, sputnik, tragedy, coca-cola, biology, medicine, atom, primadonna, ballet, cricket, hockey, chocolate, communism, democracy.

Exercise 9. State the origin of the following translation-loans. Give more examples.

Five-year plan, wonder child, masterpiece, first dancer, collective farm, fellow traveller.

Exercise 10. What languages do these words come from? What is the semantic difference between the words in the following pairs?

Motherly-maternal, to begin-to commence, to wish-to desire, to love-to adore, to build-to construct, to go on-to proceed, to take part-to participate.

Exercise 11. Read the following text. Identify the etymology of as many words as you can.

For some reason the Romans neglected to overrun the country with fire and sword, though they had both of these; in fact after the Conquest, they did not mingle with the Britons at all but lived a semi-detached life in villas. They occupied their time for two or three hundred years in building Roman roads and having Roman Baths, this was called the Roman Occupation, and gave rise to the memorable Roman law, “He who baths first baths fast”, which was a good thing and still is. The Roman roads ran absolutely straight in all the directions and all led to Rome. The Romans also built towns wherever they were wanted, and, in addition, a wall between England and Scotland to keep out the savage Picts and Scots.

Part 3. Means of word-building

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