A TED Talk in how to make up new words!

A recent talk by Erin McKean as been added to the many language talks on TED. It is called "Go ahead, make up new words!". The speaker is lexicographer and her job is about adding words to the dictionary. In her talk, she encourages her audience that making up new words is important as it makes her job fun! She gives a guide to how new words are created:

• First way is by "borrowing" words from other countries like caramel from French

• A second way is by compounding words, which is putting to words together to create a new word, like bookworm

• A final way is by blending words, which is were twos words are put together but some of the letter fall off, like brunch = breakfast and lunch

This part of the talk looks into how language changes and in this case, Erin welcomes it. As we know, some people don't welcome the change but it all links back to whether you have a prescriptive or a descriptive attitude to language.

She also mentions Jean Berko-Gleeson and her Wug Test, which is about CLA and how children automatically know how to pluralise words. This is relevant reminder on how this supports the nature debate in CLA as children haven't been taught this, they just seem to know!

This is an interresting talk to watch as it gives a mixrute of both topics that the exam is covering and its a good reminder for the debates that are going on in each.

Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_go_ahead_make_up_new_words?language=en#t-249956