Overwhelm

I’m a strong believer in the ability of all English speakers to make new words. I am always on the look out when reading for new words, made on the go by speakers who feel at home and at ease with their tongue. This already happens all the time, but I feel that one of the boons of Roots English is that by putting the roots of the English tongue above those of French, Latin and Greek, it widens how many folk can make and understand new words without worry. FLaG roots can make us freeze, not knowing which or what is needed to make a new word, but English roots let us flow as wordcrafters, making new words as we will.

I was reading the other day a discussion in which somebody said the word overwhelm. That may not seem new, as we have said the word as a deed for hundreds of years, but here it was a nameword. The sentence was something like “they weren’t thinking straight due to the overwhelm”. It is easy to see that the meaning of overwhelm here is something like ‘the feeling of being overwhelmed’. No wordbook I could find yet has the word listed as a name, but only as a deed. There seems to be a smattering of it being said here and there, but not much. We are watching a new word being born, isn’t that great?

But the making of this new word is such a simple derivation, shifting it from one kind of word to another, from deed to name, without any shift in the word itself. As English has no markedness between namewords and deedwords, this is a particularly easy thing to do in this tongue. And that’s great, indeed, it is the lifeblood of English that we can make such new words with ease. I would guess that most English speakers know how to do it. We could each make a hundred or a thousand such words from existing words in this way. When English works to its own rules, new words—or rather the full use of our wordstock—is something that comes with little thought.

I’ve been working on my own example of this, as I want to condense into a short space the best argument for Roots English. I want to point out truly how different the two workways are, between using English words and using FLaG words, so that nobody can gainsay it. Below is what I have come up with, which uses some words you may have already heard if you’ve read this blog, so you will have makebelieve that you’re new to it all.

What is spiderfear? That’s right, it means ‘fear of spiders’. Ever heard it before? Most likely not, as it is not in any wordbook, and only has a few uses here and there. But you understood what it meant or what it could mean without a great deal of thought. Now, what is birdfear? Again, it is ‘fear of birds’. You have almost definitely not heard this word before, but you knew its meaning with much thought. Likewise, what is cowfear? Or catfear? Or treefear, stonefear, darknessfear, frogfear, cakefear, shoefear, tablefear, or even beerfear? I shan’t give you the meaning of each one, as you already know it by now. Indeed, not only do you know the meaning of these words, you know the meaning of any such word made in this way. Further, you can make hundreds or thousands for yourself. Any fear that you or others may have, you can name. To think that you only heard the word spiderfear for the first time a minute or two ago!

Now, what is arachnophobia? You like already know that it means ‘fear of spiders’. It is said rather often, indeed, many times more often than spiderfear. You may well also know that it is a word made from Greek roots, and that –phobia here means ‘fear’. So tell me, what is the word ending in –phobia which means ‘fear of birds’? If you know, then well done, but many folk likely won’t know that it is ornithophobia. Further, what are the same kind of words for ‘fear of cows’ and ‘fear of cats’? Well, you likely don’t know that the answers are taurophobia and ailurophobia, but that’s okay, as most folk wouldn’t. You are also unlikely to know the words to describe fear of trees, stone, darkness, frogs, cakes, shoes, tables, or even beer. Indeed, even if you happen to know one or two of those, you are in a tiny minority. Not many folk know Ancient Greek well enough to figure out these words. We only know those we have remembered, and have little capacity to make new words or understand existing ones such as hoplophobia or sitophobia. Making words with Greek roots has pretty much left us helpless and powerless to use our tongue to the full. You may have known the word arachnophobia for many years, yet you still don’t understand most words made in that way.

I have yet to give this a go on somebody, but if you do, let me know how it works out.