Creative Morphology

A person in my life -- who shall remain unnamed -- has a very interesting way of combining words to make unconventional new words. For the vast majority of instances, it is not something done consciously, or to be clever. Some examples:

• "disconcerning" ( = concerning + disconcerting)
• "disparagy" (disparity + disparaging)
• referring to ferrets: "muscalins" ( = mustelids + musky? mescaline??)

This person also pronounces several words in a way I consider to be incorrect, as the result is actually an entirely different word. He points out that I teach about the importance of maintaining home dialects, but since these actually cause confusion, I maintain that it is more than just a different way to pronounce things. Some examples:

• "Dingo" Fever (for Dengue Fever) 
• "Robinson Road" (for Robison Road)
• "Darleks" (for the Daleks on Doctor Who)
• mixing up the word for the Brazilian liquor "Cachaça" with the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, "Kinshasa"

More examples to be posted soon...