Keep Your English Up to Date – Angličtina Youradio Talk Youradio Talk

Profesor David Crystal: One of the big questions always asked about a language: “how do new words come into being?” Well, you can borrow them from other languages of course; a lot of English words are like that. But one of the lesser-known ways of forming new words is to form a blend – and a blend is when you run two words together to make a third word. And people have done it since the beginning of English actually. To take a recent example: alcopops – carbonated fruit flavoured drinks containing alcohol – a very controversial thing it was when they first came in a few years ago, because it was obviously being aimed at children, and people were very concerned that children would now have some alcohol introduced into them that they weren’t expecting. But it’s the word I want to talk about today – a very interesting word indeed! Alco-pops. Alco is obviously the first part of the word, shortened version of "alcohol". And pops is the second part of the word. Pops you might not know so much about. It has quite a long-standing usage. It’s basically the word for lemonade once upon a time. Pop bottles – because of the sound that’s made when a cork is drawn out of an effervescing drink [spot: cork being pulled out of a bottle] – that sort of sound! – and pops became a very quick sound symbolic way of expressing that kind of notion; so the two words have come together: alcohol and pops …and becomes alco-pops. to come into being - znikat borrowed words - cizí slova blend - složenina alcopops - perlivý alkoholický nápoj s ovocnou příchutí carbonated - perlivý, s bublinkami aimed at - zamířeno na once upon a time - bylo nebylo, kdysi dávno to be concerned - obávat se pop - perlivý nápoj pull out - vytáhnout

There are lots of words like this in English. Brunch is another one – for a mixture of breakfast and lunch, and you can actually have quite a fun game making these blends up yourself. For instance, if you decide that you want to invent a cross between a helicopter and a bicycle shall we say? Well, make a blend about it. You could call it a "helicycle" for instance, or maybe a "bicopter". brunch (mixture of breakfast and lunch) - pozdní bohatá snídaně to make up - vytvořit (vymyslet) a cross between - kříženec mezi to make a blend - spojit dohromady

Prefixes, almost by definition, don't occur as separate words. I mean, that's what they're for: they're for modifying a word, occurring before a word, and making it change it’s meaning - happy, un-happy, national, de-nationalise. They don't normally occur as words on their own. You've perhaps heard 'anti' - he's very 'anti' something, a-n-t-i. Or he's very 'pro' something - well they're prefixes which have just suddenly become different words. Now they've been around for a very long time. A recent one, absolutely fascinating one, is this prefix 'dis': d-i-s, or sometimes d-i-s-s. It's from the word 'disrespect', to show disrespect to somebody, from the noun, by insulting language, or insulting behaviour. It means basically to put somebody down. It's American, black English slang, and it's been around since about 1980. And what's happened, it's come to be used as a full verb. You can say now 'I dissed him' - to diss, I dissed him - or 'stop dissing her'. And that's the interesting thing, that it's the prefix that's become the verb! It's a most remarkable development. prefix - předpona to occur - objevit se to modify - změnit, pozměnit he's very 'anti - velký odpůrce he's very 'pro' - zastánce they've been around - existují disrespect - neúcta, nezdvořilost, urážka to show disrespect (to put somebody down) - urážet, zesměšňovat to diss - urážet, zesměšňovat, vysmívat se it's been around since - existuje od…

I was watching a docusoap on the television the other day. A what, you might say? A docu-soap. Well, it’s another one of these blend-words, where two words have come together to make a third word. In this particular case, I’m talking about a TV genre, which mixes a documentary programme and a soap. Now documentary programmes we all know, and these are particular fly-on-the wall documentaries we’re talking about now, where people are carrying on their everyday lives, doing their ordinary things and yet being televised or radio-recorded at the same time. But why soap? Why are these things called soap operas? Well that goes back to the 1930s and it was probably because some of the early sponsors of radio programmes at the time and television programmes were soap manufacturers, and so the idea came that a soap was one of these everyday, you know, washing machine kind of dramas. docusoap - televizní program (něco mezi dokumentem a soap operou (kamera nezúčastněně sleduje každodenní život skutečné rodiny, skupiny studentů a nebo třeba osudy doktorů a pacientů v nemocnici. Příběhy nepíší scénáristé, postavy neztvárňují herci, ale přesto se o jakýsi příběh ze života jedná.) soap opera - seriál ze života s obyčejnými hrdiny (washing machine kind of dramas) fly-on-the wall - moucha na zdi to be televised - natočit televizní kamerou that goes back to - datuje se od…

And so a docusoap is a documentary attempt to take one of these programmes and put it into an everyday circumstance. It’s not the only word of its kind – docudrama is another one, for a dramatised film based on a semi-fictional interpretation of real events. Oh, and don’t forget, it’s used in the novel as well, in literature. We talk about “factions” – documentary fiction in the novel – it’s a blurring of reality and fiction: very popular these days! docudrama - hraný dokument semi-fictional - dramatizace skutečných událostí fiction - beletrie factions - spojení beletrie a literatury faktu a blurring of reality and fiction - smazání rozdílů mezi skutečností a fikcí

In a vote, in 1998, the American Dialect Society looked for 'the new word that was most likely to succeed'. And they had an accolade "the word of the year". In that particular year, it wasn't a word at all, it was...e-! E -hyphen, the prefix, meaning electronic of course, and you'll find it in e-mail of course, these days, a lot. Well, why did they think it was going to be such a successful development? Well because in the mid-1990s they had noticed, the American Dialect Society had noticed how many people were using this e- prefix and applying it to all kinds of circumstances. And in the 1990s you got all these developments: e-books (electronic books); e-voting (electronic voting); you could get a loan from a company by e-mail, and it would be an e-loan. There were e-newsletters, e-securities, e-shopping, hundreds more. And people after a while began to play with the word - you will have heard this too: you know about retail and retailing. Well now you can have e-tail and e-tailing, because that's retail shopping over the internet. And of course it didn't take long until people started to complain about the way in which it was over-used. In fact a couple of years later, one of the big internet magazines said, "this is a word, this is a prefix that has to go!” everybody is using it too much. Well, it hasn't gone - it's here to stay. E-speak is the future! hyphen - pomlčka apply - aplikovat, používat e-books, voting, loan, newsletters - elektronické knihy, hlasování, půjčka, securities - informační buletin, akcie retail/ e-tail - obchod v drobném to complain - stěžovat si over-used - zneužívat that has to go - musí zmizet