7 ms·
Does anyone else find spicing up ordinary words with new cognates amusing? Super-researchers are ultraconcerned about hyperalarming insect megaloss.
by coldnose 8y ago
Does anyone else find spicing up ordinary words with new cognates amusing? Super-researchers are ultraconcerned about hyperalarming insect megaloss.
- traek 8y agoPrefixes, not cognates.
- jawns 8y agoOne of the examples that coldnose offers has a suffix appended to it, so I think you're incorrect, too. Maybe affixes? By the way, yours is an example of Muphry's law. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law And because I'm correcting your incorrect correction, I have a feeling that I've gotten something wrong, too.
- kbrackbill 8y agoWhich one is a suffix? super- hyper- ultra- mega- are all prefixes
- throwaway2048 8y agothe usual term is superlatives for intensifiers like that.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoSuper-pedantic.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoMegadantic
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y agoIt is literally what I love about the English language. You can easily generate new words that are easily understood. In the same thought, it's completely unnecessary.
- gnulinux 8y agoHmm what do you mean by English language? I cannot think of a language that wouldn't let this (maybe a very analytic language, like Mandarin?). This is probably a universal property of human languages.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- codyb 8y agoI don't speak German but I've always had the impression they love mashing words together to make super long but informative words.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoYes, that's a thing they do in German. Instead of post office it would be postoffice. Instead of train station it would be trainstation. (Only in German, obviously.) Not exactly what's being described above though.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]