What make a word real

Anne Curzan: What makes a word “real”? (March 2014)

Summary: There is a controversy on changes in the English language like creation of new words by the Internet users. Anne Curzan, an English professor who is also a language historian, found out that there are many people who concern about this kind of changes and regard new words as not real ones. However, Professor Anne Curzan showed a different point of view toward the fads and changes in English language.(compound sentence) She argued that we should take language change as fascinating and and fun thing and insisted to participate in showing the creativity of the languages on our own since that change is a reflection of our life.(complex sentence IC-DC) When it comes to real languages, we more often than not refer to the dictionaries. In fact, the dictionary editors make the dictionaries by searching the real usages of the words by the mass and decide whether to register that language or not by the results, not by their own preference; therefore, language change is a result of our own usages in languages and it can be attractive.(compound sentence)

Opinion: There are numerous TV shows in Korea with their long history, such as 우리말 겨루기 (Competition on Korean Language) and 우리말 지킴이 (Guardian of Korean Language). Both programs are for promotion of proper Korean language usage. Watching these programs, I thought that it is right to stick to our traditional rules of Korean language. However, when I heard the news that ‘짜장면’ is also authorized as a standard language with ‘자장면’, which was the only registered word on the dictionary, I wondered who decide the rules of Korean language. (complex sentence DC,IC) This video was fascinating to me since it resolved my curiosity. It was really interesting for me to learn the process of making a dictionary and good to hear that it reflects people, not thoughts of minor elite people.

Related Link: 

As Ms Anne Curzan mentioned in her speech, there is an interesting vote for Words of the Year, hosted by American Dialect Society. Every American can vote for the word!

As for newly created languages, you can refer to this site! Keep up with the fad!

Vocabulary & Expressions

…but they don’t want to appear faddish and include the words that aren’t going to make it.

Are you bothered by language fads and language change, or do you find it fun, interesting, something worthy of study as part of a living language?

Fad (noun) / Faddish (adjective): something that people are interested in for only a short period of time

Synonyms: craze, trend

Antonyms: tradition, convention

Personal Sentence: I found out that I really use a lot of fad words when I text to my friends not only in Korean, but also in English.

Now, a few weeks before our vote, Lake Superior State University issues its list of banished words  for the year.

Banish (verb): to make somebody/something go away; to order somebody to leave a place, especially a country, as a punishment

Synonyms: eliminate, eradicate, evict

Antonyms: keep, hold, incorporate

Personal Sentence: I always go for a walk listening to music to banish all my worries.

When you play Scrabble and a dispute arises over whether or not a word is real, the rules of the game tell you to check a dictionary. Of course, we also often turn to dictionaries outside of Scrabble-playing to answer questions about what words are real. This is because dictionaries function as important records for what words mean both now and throughout history.

But as our collective usage of the English language changes over time, new words often emerge. There are a variety of ways that new words enter the language. New words can be compounds of preexisting words, like brunch (breakfast + lunch). New words can also be old words that take on new meaning, like how “decimate” used to mean “kill one in ten,” but now means something like “wiped out the whole army.” New words can even be old words that adopt a new grammatical function, like how the proper noun “Google” turns into the verb “I googled it.” And sometimes new word

Anne Curzan (TED Talk)

In her entertaining TED Talk, Anne Curzan explores this question of what makes a word real. Curzan is an English professor and historian of the English language, and she helps write usage notes for dictionaries. In this talk, which she gave to a room full of students, she explains the very human process of compiling dictionaries and encourages them to think creatively about how language can change over time.

Related Activity

As a fun activity idea, have your student watch the TED Talk and then research and present on a handful of words As a fun activity idea, have your student watch the TED Talk and then research and present on a handful of words that are recent additions to the English language. Consider selecting a word from each category (blended, old words with new meaning, old words functioning as different parts of speech, and words from another language) to be incorporated into your student’s presentation. You could also ask your student to come up with their own word and meaning.