In etymology, back-formation refers to the process of creating a new lexeme (less precisely, a new "word") by removing actual or supposed affixes. Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time For its use in the context of Computer Science see Lexical analysis. An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word The resulting neologism is called a back-formation. A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been Back-formations are shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations may be viewed as a sub-type of clipping. In Linguistics, clipping is the Word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (Marchand1969

For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin, and the verb resurrect was then backformed hundreds of years later from it by removing the -ion suffix. This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect + ion was possible because English had many examples of Latinate words that had verb and verb+-ion pairs — in these pairs the -ion suffix is added to verb forms in order to create nouns (such as, insert/insertion, project/projection, etc. ).

Back formation may be similar to the reanalyses of folk etymologies when it rests on an erroneous understanding of the morphology of the longer word. Folk etymology is a term used in two distinct ways A commonly held misunderstanding of the origin of a particular word a False etymology. For example, the singular noun asset is a back-formation from the plural assets. However, assets is originally not a plural; it is a loan-word from Anglo-Norman asetz (modern French assez). A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation The Anglo-Norman language is a term traditionally used to refer to the variety of French used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles following the French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The -s was reanalyzed as a plural suffix.

Back-formation in the English language

Many words came into English by this route: Pease was once a mass noun but was reinterpreted as a plural, leading to the back-formation pea. In Linguistics, a mass noun (also uncountable noun or non-count noun) is a common Noun that presents entities as an unbounded mass In the English Language, Nouns are inflected for Grammatical number —that is singular or Plural. The noun statistic was likewise a back-formation from the field of study statistics. Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data. In Britain the verb burgle came into use in the 19th century as a back-formation from burglar (which can be compared to the North America verb burglarize formed by suffixation).

Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect. For example, gruntled or pervious (from disgruntled and impervious) would be considered mistakes today, and used only in humorous contexts. The comedian George Gobel regularly used original back-formations in his humorous monologues. George Leslie Gobel ( May 20, 1919 - February 24, 1991) was an American Comedian, best known as the star of his own weekly NBC Bill Bryson mused that the English language would be richer if we could call a tidy-haired person shevelled - as an opposite to dishevelled. William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, (born 8 December 1951 is a best-selling American Author of humorous books on Travel, as well

Frequently back-formations begin in colloquial use and only gradually become accepted. For example, enthuse (from enthusiasm) is gaining popularity, though it is still considered substandard by some today.

The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the Siege of Mafeking briefly created the verb to maffick, meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly. The Siege of Mafeking was the most famous British action in the Second Boer War. "Maffick" was a back-formation from Mafeking, a place-name that was treated humorously as a gerund or participle. Toponymy refers to the scientific study of place-names ( toponyms) their origins meanings use and Typology. In Linguistics, “gerund” is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages As applied to English, In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite There are many other examples of back-formations in the English language. Back-formation refers to either the process of creating a new Lexeme (less precisely a new "word" by removing actual or supposed Affixes or

See also

• List of English back-formations
• folk etymology
• backronym
• retronym
• juncture loss

References

Back-formation refers to either the process of creating a new Lexeme (less precisely a new "word" by removing actual or supposed Affixes or Folk etymology is a term used in two distinct ways A commonly held misunderstanding of the origin of a particular word a False etymology. A backronym (or bacronym) is a Phrase that is constructed "after the fact" from a previously existing word or Abbreviation, the abbreviation A retronym is a type of Neologism coined for an old object or concept whose original name has come to be used for something else is no longer unique or is otherwise inappropriate Juncture loss (also known as junctural metanalysis, false splitting, misdivision, refactorization, or rebracketing) is the

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