43, 44, 45. Clippings, Coinage, and Morphological Misanaylsis

Not too long ago, we learned the origins of the term, "nickname." The term used to be "ekename," which was a compound word for "additional name." The misunderstanding of the phrase "an ekename" led to it becoming "a nekename." Now we simply know it as a nickname.

This totally blew my mind. I raised my hand and said that I always thought that it was called a nickname because you were "nicking" a part from your name. For example, my name is Samantha but I go by Sam. I thought my 'nickname' was Sam because I "nicked" it from Samantha. Doctor Howard reminded me that 'Sam' from 'Samantha' is an example of a clipping, and that my misunderstanding was a great example of a morphological misanalysis.

A clipping is exactly what it sounds like-- a shortening of a longer word into a smaller one. Like Sam from Samantha, or exam from examination. A morphological misanalysis, or false/folk etymology, is when a word or phrase is misheard or misanalyzed (like my misunderstanding of why we call it a 'nickname'). This happens a lot in songs; we mishear the lyrics and so we think the song says something entirely different (I get made fun of for this all the time). Other examples (provided in our course-pack) would be take it for granite instead of take it for granted, or chester drawers from chest of drawers (this was one I said when I was little, except I think I said cheshire-- ironically enough, I had a set of drawers that had Alice in Wonderland characters on it).

Thinking about all of this reminded me of my earlier entry about southern accents and the "pop versus soda" debate. I used to say coke instead of pop or soda, and I thought maybe this was a morphological misanalysis on my part when I was young. But I quickly realized that it was not this but another English word formation process-- coinage.

In North Carolina, every soft drink was called a coke, not just Coca-Cola. Just like we tend to call all tissue Kleenex, or instead of saying we're going to copy it, we are going to xerox it. This seems like the same thing to me.

It is really interesting (and oddly exciting) to discover a term for something I said in my childhood.

8,9,10,11. Southern Accent and "Pop versus Soda"

Yesterday in class we realized that a few students (one young man in particular) had slight Canadian accents despite having grown up in Cleveland. This made me think about where I was born and lived the first half of my life—Greenville, North Carolina. I specifically reminisced over the accent that I had—an adorable and slightly thick southern accent. However, when I moved I was instantly made fun of for my way of speaking. Not only did everyone imitate my accent, but they also made fun of my use of the word “y’all.” Being the new kid was bad enough, but being the new kid who “sounded funny” was so much worse.

So, of course, I set to work right away. I practiced removing my accent. Every day I forced myself to say words the way my classmates did, and I would record myself in my spare time in order to hear what I sounded like. In no time I was able to speak without my accent without any effort, and eventually I flat out removed it.

Now I wish I had my accent back. To me there is nothing more charming than an accent, and being older and wiser I appreciate individuality and standing out from the crowd. Of course there are still some words I pronounce differently (for example, I say ‘pin’ and ‘pen’ the same way—something I am made fun of for to this day!), but I think I sound about as “Ohio” as I possibly can.

I also started thinking about some southern slang (when I googled a list of southern slang, I learned that it is called "Y'allbonics"). There is the big one that everyone thinks of when the south is talked about, and that is the word "y'all." Y'all is a contraction of the words 'you' and 'all.' As unintelligent and "hicky" as it sounds, I'm a huge fan of "y'all." Some people detest the use of the word just like they detest "ain't." Maybe it's because I was raised on the use of 'y'all' but I don't think it sounds as stupid and unintelligent as people like to make it seem.

Another thing I thought of was "Pop versus soda," and what regions of the US use which term. When I was little and we would go through the drive-thru, I would always order a Happy Meal and a coke. To me, every soda/pop was called coke. I thought this was just childhood ignorance, but after searching for "Pop versus Soda," I found several websites discussing the debate, and found that calling all soda 'coke' was in fact a southern thing. I found the following map:

North Carolina (where I'm from), seems to use all three terms, but mostly says "coke." However, I was interested to see that "soda" wasn't as popular as I thought, and is used in multiple parts of the US, whereas the other two words seem to be heavily concentrated in one big area.

sources:
www.popvssoda.com