Words are invented constantly. For example, you might have seen any number of articles in the last year or so about the many words that emerged from the pandemic: Covid, zoombombing, quarantini, doomscrolling, etc.
You might wonder how many of these words are going to stick around. If someone says covidiot or rona five or ten years from now, will anyone even remember what those refer to? The question of the longevity of words is a topic of interest to linguists and to lexicographers; for example, the latter have to think about whether it’s worth the time and effort of putting a term into a dictionary.
While reading about this issue, I was delighted to learn about something called the FUDGE scale. This is a formula (so to speak) that was devised by the linguist Allan Metcalf[1] to try to predict whether a neologism is likely to be successful—that is, whether it will stick around. FUDGE stands for:
- Frequency. To be successful, new words have to be used.
- Unobstrusiveness. New words can’t be awkward or unnatural.
- Diversity of users and meanings. New words are unlikely to be successful if they’re used only by a small group of speakers.
- Generating new forms. A new word is successful if it, like established words, evolves new forms or new meanings.
- Endurance. New words have to refer to an idea that continues to be relevant.
Think about the following words that made a splash a decade or more ago, and whether they’ve been successful, and whether the FUDGE scale would help in predicting that success: planking, vuvuzela, podcast, hacktivism, gleek, subprime, truthiness, phish, greenwashing, muggle, metrosexual, blog. Or consider one family’s effort to get the word obisculate, a term invented by the father, into “the” dictionary.
I don’t know whether the FUDGE scale has proved to be a reliable predictor of neological success, but I like that it’s a way to think about the issue. You can read more about the FUDGE scale and other thoughts from Metcalf in an interview on the Vocabulary.com site.
Origins! A word that was in the news recently was eucharist. I thought that just to be safe, I should look it up to make sure I knew what it meant. And while I was there, I checked the etymology, because I really had no idea where it came from besides that it looked like something from Greek.
First, the definition. Eucharist is another word for communion, which is a Christian ceremony in which consecrated bread and wine are taken as (depending on the denomination) either representations of or as actual elements of the divinity.
English got the word eucharist from Norman French, which in turn got it from Latin. But it does indeed go back to the Greek word eucharistia, which means “gratitude, thanksgiving.” The eu- prefix (often a clue to Greek origins) means “well, good.” The -charist part comes from a verb “to show favor,” in turn from a root meaning “favor, grace.” A related term we have in English is charisma.
The religious association with between “thanksgiving” and the taking of bread and wine derives from the description in the Bible of what’s popularly known as “the Last Supper.” From Luke 22:
19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
This ceremony of the Eucharist became a sacrament, apparently going back to the earliest days of the Christian church. The Didache, a book nearly contemporaneous with the gospels, lays out catechisms of the early church; it contains a section on the Eucharist that starts with “Now concerning the Thanksgiving (Eucharist), thus give thanks. First, concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant […].”
I assume that many people know all this (well, maybe not the etymology?), but this was new to me this week. Yet another benefit of learning word histories is learning about the world at large.
Like this? Read all the Friday words.
___________________
[1] Metcalf’s book OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word is the definitive write-up of the history of that most useful of words. [^]