When do words, become words?

[cheesefest]

When do words create a new meaning.

Take 'sick' which means vomit, feeling ill.

Now a new meaning of sick means good/great.

 

[cheesefest]

The French have a mechanism for this, which is hilarious. The Academie Francaise. Basically, if a new thing is invented they create a word like. For example, the computer is an ordinateur.

Académie Française - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But, they can't turn the tied of slang and natural language development; the French will call computers whatever they want.

If they cannot find a word in French, stick le or la in front of it. Such as le weekend. It should be Semainefin

 

[dirtychinchilla]

If they cannot find a word in French, stick le or la in front of it. Such as le weekend. It should be Semainefin

 

[englishpremier]

I hear it's usually judged by the usage levels on OCUK forums. This is where the term letter box was derived for example.

The OC UK crowd just copies whatever they hear somewhere else on the internet. Remember 'quoted for truth', now we have 'strawman' constantly coming up in threads, and someones 'take' on something, rather than their opinion.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

The French have a mechanism for this, which is hilarious. The Academie Francaise. Basically, if a new thing is invented they create a word like. For example, the computer is an ordinateur.

Académie Française - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But, they can't turn the tied of slang and natural language development; the French will call computers whatever they want.

”Footing” for jogging is my new favourite slang word.

An old favourite phrase when describing a particularly smooth wine is “Comme le petit Jésus en culotte de velours” : ”Like baby Jesus in velour pants”.

 

[Hagar]

”Footing” for jogging is my new favourite slang word.

Footing is what sits under your brick walls supporting a building. Of course first footing is bashing down someone's door to get at their whisky stash.

 

[Feek]

Some words don't catch on. For example, anaspeptic, frasmotic and pericombobulation. Others do such as cromulent and embiggen.

 

[cheesefest]

Gay used to mean pretty.
Now it’s homosexual

 

[gingergundog]

Gay used to mean pretty.
Now it’s homosexual

Wasn't it more happy rather than pretty?

 

[Participant]

Words? Words don't come easy to me.

Gay used to mean pretty.
Now it’s homosexual

You are widely considered to be extremely gay. In the old sense of course.

 

[Feek]

Wasn't it more happy rather than pretty?

Happy, jolly, carefree. Certainly not ‘pretty’.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Through common usage.

When a word is deemed common usage, it will be collected and added to a dictionary.

There is no merit test, unfortunately.

Going back to the 90s I worked with a bloke who was weirder than me.
One day he said he was going to take a word and make it common place on the factory we worked at which had about 4,000 staff.
He chose the word 'Drongo' to use as a deragotary word because he'd seen the bird on a TV programme.
Within 6 months everybody was using it and even now when I'm talking to some of those old workers we'll use the word drongo when talking about certain people.

 

[Tuppy_Glossop]

Drongo was made popular by the character Alf in Home & Away, a dreadful Aussie teen soap. We picked it up at the end of the eighties/early nineties.

E: Another of his favourites was, "Dull, bludging hippy galaa" and I think the Galaa is another Antipodean bird. Maybe he hated birds?

 

[Feek]

Drongo was made popular by the character Alf in Home & Away, a dreadful Aussie teen soap. We picked it up at the end of the eighties/early nineties.

Yup, it’s not an uncommon word.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Drongo was made popular by the character Alf in Home & Away, a dreadful Aussie teen soap. We picked it up at the end of the eighties/early nineties.

Perhaps that is where he saw it first but nobody used it on that factory until he got everybody using the word and it became very popular.

 

[gingergundog]

Drongo was made popular by the character Alf in Home & Away, a dreadful Aussie teen soap. We picked it up at the end of the eighties/early nineties.

E: Another of his favourites was, "Dull, bludging hippy galaa" and I think the Galaa is another Antipodean bird. Maybe he hated birds?

Stone the flamin' crows!

 

[Tuppy_Glossop]

Yeah, just from another country's lexicon, I'm afraid.

@gingergundog When you know...

Edit: Maybe Aussies use the names of birds when we would use "French" or "German". They have neither neighbours (lol, no pun intended) nor history. Maybe Drongoes and Galaas are annoying?

 

[GGizmo]

I think words become words when they are spoken with an understood meaning.

I've been watching some videos recently about the origin of some English words.

I recently discovered the Yorkshire phrase "Ey up" comes from Swedish "Sey upp", presumably from the Viking occupation of eastern England.

 

[cheesefest]

Drongo was made popular by the character Alf in Home & Away, a dreadful Aussie teen soap. We picked it up at the end of the eighties/early nineties.

E: Another of his favourites was, "Dull, bludging hippy galaa" and I think the Galaa is another Antipodean bird. Maybe he hated birds?

Drongo was mentioned many times in Prisoner.

Use some Lizzie Birdsworth quotes "rack off" "bugger me gently" "you little ripper"

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Drongo was mentioned many times in Prisoner.

Use some Lizzie Birdsworth quotes "rack off" "bugger me gently" "you little ripper"

Perhaps it was but I'm talking about a factory full of knuckle draggers who only spoke about football and cars and definitely wouldn't be watching Home and Away or Cell Block H.
He may have it heard it on one of those programmes and decided he'd get every body using it as a normal word.
I know I'd never heard it before because I wasn't acquainted with anything Aussie except AC/DC and Rose Tattoo (although I did watch the singer of Rose Tattoo (Angry Anderson) on an episode of Neighbours) and drongo wasn't mentioned in that.