Creation process

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Coinage (generally trade {nomes comerciais} names): invention of totally new terms. Also called phonological neologism.

-Zipper: “She slid back into her shorts, leaving the zipper open so her tiny belly could breathe”.

Generified Words: usage of specific brand names of products as names for the products in general.

-Gillette (for disposable {descartaveis} blades and shaving razors {navalhas} in general): “she shaved her legs with her Gillette"

Borrowing (loanwords): words from other languages are imported into English.

-Gesundheit: “We can't blow our nose without Kansas saying' gesundheit”.(do alemão)

Calque: translated or adapted borrowings.

-Superman (from German ‘Übermensch’): “He would talk endlessly about the mythical superman who, because he was a superman, stood outside the law, beyond any moral code that might constrain the actions of ordinary men”.

Blending: composition of two separate forms to produce a single new term

-Spanglish (Spanish + English): “In your book you use and highlight Spanglish as a sign and an expression of ‘hybridity’”.

Clipping: reduction of a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form

-Gas (gasoline): “Startup costs and the decision to switch from firewood to gas fuel”.

Backformation: reduction of a word, changing grammar class (usually from a noun to a verb).

-Option/to opt: “So a great many of them will opt to pay the fine, not provide the insurance and leave it up to the employers to fend for themselves”.

Patterns with professions:

Babysitter/to babysit: “I'm going to sit there and babysit you, Bob, and make sure...”.

Hypocorisms (reduction of a word to a syllable and then –y or –ier is added to the end; also nicknames):

Breakfast/brekky: “Big Brekky is a friendly café that has been a feature of the casual dining scene in Petersham for over 10 years.

Proper nouns (or eponyms): names of people which turned into common nouns.

Sandwich (named after its inventor, the Earl of Sandwich): “Testers were skeptical- an MRE with a three-year shelf life? - but liked the strong cinnamon flavor and hearty, bready bite of this syrup-filled breakfast sandwich”.

Backronyms: a word reinterpreted as an acronym. The idea here is that first you choose a word, than you create the acronym.

◦ PEARL: Practical Extraction and Report Language – computer language

Abbreviations: words formed from the initial letter of a set of other words and pronounced separately .

-VCR (video cassette recorder): “She slotted the VCR tape into the player”.

Analogy: words formed to be similar in some way to existing words .

-Hippie/yuppie: “At one time, Atlanta Bread Company wanted to become the yuppie equivalent of McDonald's, with deli/bakery shops serving its upscale fast food across the nation”.

Onomatopoeia: words suggesting sounds.

-Burp: “Ella pulled away and sat up gurgling and, with a large burp, dripped milk from her satisfied lips”.

Reduplication: a morpheme or part of it is repeated, creating a word with a different meaning or lexical category.

-Yum-yum (delicious) : “I'm going to show you what yum-yum is. Here's yum, here's the other yum and here's yum-yum