In a changing environment, ranging from technology to social trends, we humans seem to find and develop new words to make sense of our world. These are so-called neologisms, which can be defined as a new word, an expression or a new meaning of a word. Then, what makes some neologisms stick and why do some just disappear altogether?
Think of it like this: ever since we started cultivating our land, we needed a word for its specific practice, hence the word agriculture. By the time we could build engines, we needed new words such as automobile. Today, however, we need smartphones and accompanying the heavy tech dependent age we seem to find ourselves in now we have found to be using words such as ‘selfie’, ‘binge watch’ or ‘digital afterlife’. Indeed, the pace of development neologisms have taken in the last 10 years or so seems to be, to a large extent, faster than in previous years.
In this particular case, it seems quite simple when arguing that we need a constant supply of new words: we just need to make sense of a rapidly changing world. In the 21st century, the world is just changing in a faster pace than it did during the 20th century. For these reasons, and perhaps many more, neologisms will keep developing and appearing faster than they do today 10 years from now. The more we change and alter our surrounding environment, the more difficult it will be for us to make sense of it with an ‘outdated’ viewpoint.
Here at TermCoord, we focus particularly on languages and its evolution. In attempt to meet the rising demand of new words, we have compiled a list of neologisms.
Access the table here.
If you’d like to contribute to our neologisms, please send us an e-mail with the following information:
– a clear definition of the word
– a source
– a description of its origins or etymology
What do you think of new words? Are they useful or not?
By Oscar Larsson
Student at University of Glasgow
Communication Trainee at TermCoord