I’m so gruntled right now
Today I ventured into etymology and learned about back-formations.
A back-formation is when a word is created by removing an element from an existing word, as opposed to adding one. It can change the word’s meaning or the part of speech.
It’s interesting to think about how words were invented.
You may think that EDITOR was formed from EDIT. No, you are wrong. EDITOR was in use long before EDIT. EDITOR came into use in 1649; EDIT appeared in 1791 with the deletion of OR.
— O.A. Booty, “Funny Side of English” p. 29
Edit arose because the word editor sounds as if it should mean “one who edits.”
Middle English “pease” was a mass noun already in wide use, but people assumed it was plural. So they came up with “pea.”
Some other fun back-formations:
- Buttle — To work as a butler. “There is no one today worth buttling for.”
- Burgle — originally a humorous and colloquial back-formation from burglar. In American English, the preferred term in serious situations is “burglarize” (but it’s actually the other way around in British English).
- Gruntled — back-formation from disgruntled. People assumed that “disgruntled” was a negative and invented the word “gruntled.” (However, gruntle actually is the etymological source of the formation of disgruntle, but it means to make a grunting noise when complaining. This illustrates the difficulty of avoiding collisions when creating words by back-formation.)
- Waft — comes from wafter, “an armed convoy or escort ship”
- Statistic — back-formation from the field of study statistics
- Berserk — back-formation from berserker, “one of a band of ancient Norse warriors legendary for their savagery and reckless frenzy in battle”
- Sleaze — from sleazy, which meant “hairy, fuzzy” when it originated in the 17th century
- Bus (to clear dishes from a table)— from busboy
- Burger — from hamburger
Many more English words have been coined by back-formation. Usually they begin in colloquial language, and then gradually become accepted.
I don’t disdain you! It’s quite the opposite — I dain you.
— Turk (to Dr. Cox) on Scrubs
Here’s my suggestion for a new back-formation:
Novate, from innovation. (v) Make changes in something established, by introducing zero new ideas and instead forcing old methods, ideas, or products. “Microsoft novated again.”
And a few other ideas:
- Picious, from suspicious. (adj) Being very trustworthy and honest. “The policeman acted in a picious manner.”
- Sequious, from obsequious, which means “obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree.” (adj) Giving zero fucks. “Darnell was a sequious boyfriend and didn’t bother to help his girlfriend up after she fell.”
- Latform, from platform. (n) Something that enables you to be hidden and unseen. “Tiny is a startup that’s building a publishing latform so you can write things that never get surfaced anywhere.”
- Nebule, from nebulous, “unclear, vague, or ill-defined.” (n) A single, well-defined theory. “Dr. Burke’s nebule about dissecting aortas turned out to be the patient’s cause of death.”
- Way, from no way. —from Rob Sayrer
- Ritate, from irritate. (v) Soothe someone’s annoyance or anger. “Gareth’s tuneful whistling never failed to ritate Sheila.” —from Neil Dawson
- Advertent, from inadvertent. (adj) Resulting from or achieved through deliberate planning. —from Matyas Lagos
- Bobulate, from discombobulate. (v) To consolidate and make lucid.
—from Adam Mitchell - Fraz, from frazzle. (v) To explain the actions which may ‘frazzle’ someone. —from Adam Mitchell
- Esot, from esoteric. (adj) A fact that only a specialized, niche group of people can comprehend. —from Jordan Wirfs-Brock
- Whelmed, from overwhelmed. (adj) Dealing with it. —from Angus Croll
