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What is neologism?

The lexicographic term "neologism" is in itself something of a neologism. For a long

time neologism was mainly seen as pathological or deviating - Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary (1966) describes neologism as "a meaningless word coined by
a psychotic" - and such linguistic standard works as Bloomfield´s Language or Lyons’
Semantics do not index the term. [ Rey (1995:63)]

In 1975 French lexicographer and terminologist Alain Rey published his Essai de
définition du concept de néologisme, translated into English and printed in 1995, where
he gives a thorough theoretical treatise of processes of lexical neology and lays a
theoretical foundation for systematic lexicological and terminological work in the area.
Rey emphasizes among other things the social and pragmatic aspects of linguistic
neology. He quotes fellow French lexicographer Louis Guilbert (La créativité lexicale
1975): "The creation of a neologism cannot be dissociated from individual creators who
are integrated into a community and use it in discourse for expressing themselves in a
particular situation." (Rey 1995:66). Neologisms as a linguistic phenomenon can be
seen from different aspects: time (synchronic), geographical, social and
communicative. Thus neologism is

"... a unit of the lexicon, a word, a word element or a phrase, whose meaning, or
whose signifier-signified relationship, presupposing an effective function in a
specific model of communication, was not previously materialised as a linguistic
form in the immediately preceding stage of the lexicon of the language. This
novelty, which is observed in relation to a precise and empirical definition of the
lexicon, corresponds normally to a specific feeling in speakers. According to the
model of the lexicon chosen, the neologism will be perceived as belonging to
the language in general or only to one of its special usages; or as belonging to
a subject-specific usage which may be specialised or general." (Rey 1995:77)

There is thus no doubt that neologisms are tokens of a creative process as described
by Rogers (1976) as "a novel relational product, growing out of the uniqueness of the
individual on the one hand, and the materials, events, people, or circumstances of his
life on the other."

A blog article on neologisms:

Stupid Neologism of the Day

People often use the verb “to impact” instead of “to affect” or the noun “impact” instead
of “effect” because they can’t be bothered to remember the difference between affect
and effect.

One self-styled writer tweets, “Yep, now those words [affect, effect] are being replaced
in the lexicon with things that aren’t confusing (re: impact). Language evolution wins!”

Nope. There are few contexts in which “affect” and “effect”, used properly, might be
confusing to the reader. If a writer can’t use “affect” and “effect” properly without
unintentionally confusing readers, she shouldn’t be in the writing business.

There are occasions on which “impact” might be a better word choice than the noun
“effect.” An impact is a strike or blow; while an effect might be gradual, an impact is
sudden. While an effect might be subtle, an impact is blatant. If one thing has a sudden
and noticeable effect on another, it has (or, preferably, makes) an impact.
By the same token, sometimes “to impact” might conceivably be a better word choice
than the verb “to affect.” I’m a big fan of pressing words into unusual metaphorical duty.
“To impact” (itself a neologism) also suggests violent contact (smack!), and might serve
in place of “to affect” when one thing smacks metaphorically into another.

The Law of Requisite Variety dictates that a writer will write better if she knows more
nuantially different ways to say “effect.”

All of this is by way of introduction to the stupid neologism of the day: impactful. As in,
“Impactful Opening Statements” (link is to PDF of 2009 TCDLA Rusty Duncan
Advanced Criminal Law Course agenda).

Why not “Effective Opening Statements”? (I favor “Affective Opening Statements.”) You
might want your opening statement to make an impact on the jury — to strike them, to
make an impression on them — rather than have an effect on them. Fair enough, I’ll
grudgingly spot you the first two syllables. But if you’ve got to create a synonym for
“effective”, why “impactful”?

Your opening statement isn’t really full of impact; you hope for it to make (or have) an
impact on the jury. There are more and nearer analogues for impactive (active,
effective, discursive) than impactful (harmful and dreadful come to mind). Impactive is a
much less ugly word, avoiding the gear-grinding -ctf- sound of impactful.

Finally, impactive has linguistic legs. If you use impactive you’re following in the
penstrokes of F. Scott Fitzgerald (in 1934) and William Faulkner (in 1942); if you use
impactful you sound like one of the yahoos in marketing.

Retrieved from : http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2009/03/stupid-neologism-of-the-day.html

A blog article on neologisms (2):

Friday, February 25, 2005

Neologisms -- i. e., new words

A friend on a message board I frequent wrote the following today:

Mike -- you may have heard how "downsizing" became "rightsizing." Well, now
"outsourcing" is being supplanted by "right-sourcing" (don't send jobs to India, send
them to Idaho! LOL) Sometime, I'd like to hear your thoughts about neologisms -when
are they a great idea and when they are stupid.

Neologisms are simply new words. They are created every day, I would imagine, in this
fast moving world. Scientists, for instance, routinely create new technical terms as they
discover new phenomena for which there are no appropriate existing words. The word
quark comes immediately to mind.

The phenomenon referred to as "outsourcing" was initially used in my experience for

cases in which a manufacturer, instead of building a part "in house," would acquire it
from another manufacturer, possibly in a different city or state. These days not only
manufactured parts but whole products or even services like programing are
outsourced, sometimes to businesses outside the United States. It was used frequently
in the last Presidential campaign.
Some people who fashion themselves as protectors of the English Language dislike
such creations. Yesterday, while surfing, I found the following amusing entry in a blog:

"Utilization" and "utilize" are a blot on the English language. They are polysyllabic
abominations spawned by the regulatory/consulting complex, suffering, as well it
should, from an inferiority complex that renders it too insecure to use the perfectly good
word "use."

Persons taking this sort of position are doomed to a life of linguistic disappointment.

Back to neologisms: Successful communication requires both ease of expression (a

speaker desideratum) and ease of understanding (a hearer desideratum). In the case
of the creation and acceptance of a neologism like "outsourcing" speakers of English
satisfied the criterion of ease of expression, for there is no simple existing way of
communicating the notion "acquiring goods or services from an outside source" and we
certainly don't want to use a long phrase like this every time we want to refer to the
phenomenon of outsourcing. On hearing it for the first time, in a sentence like "We are
outsourcing our widgets to Ohio Widgets," I suspect that most people would instantly
understand what is being communicated. And in that case, the neologism also satisfies
the criterion of ease of understanding.

I had not heard of the notion "rightsourcing." I presume it means "acquiring the right
amount of something from another source" or possibly "acquiring something from the
right source." Either is a credible initial interpretation for a speaker hearing it for the first
time. But that means the neologism doesn't satisfy the criterion of ease of
understanding for this criterion involves"correct understanding" of course. I suspect that
this neologism might survive within the business community but not come to be used
widely in the press or by ordinary people. I can't imagine hearing something like "We
must ecourage our business community to rightsource goods and services not
outsource them" in the next Presidential campaign.

In addition to the criteria of ease of expression and ease of understanding, there are
other factors that are involved in the successful introduction of a new word into a
language. Some years ago, the term of address "Ms" was created to be the female
equivalent to "Mr." It was largely done for political reasons as a part of the feminist
movement. "Mrs" and "Miss" give away the marital status of a woman whereas "Mr"
doesn't do the same in the case of men. When "Ms" was first introduced, I thought
business world would jump for joy, for with this term available, they would no longer
have to guess as the marital status of a woman when addressing a letter or package to
them. This incredibly useful neologism was shot down by married women who were
proud of their status and didn't want to see their status diminished by the use of "Ms."

New words can also fail for other reasons. We are unlikely to want to use ugly looking
or bad sounding words. As I observed in “What is Linguistics?”, people routinely refer
to others who speak a number of languages as linguists though the "proper" word for
this is "polyglot." The first word that comes to mind when I hear that word is "pollywog,"
another term for a tadpole. It is no wonder that polyglot is used only by linguists and
others who want to distinguish people who study the nature of language from those
who speak a number of languages. In this case, however, we are not dealing with a
neologism but with a word that is on life support.
Retrieved from : http://thelanguageguy.blogspot.com/2005/02/neologisms-i-e-new-words.html