Protologism

Template:Short description In linguistics, a protologism is a newly used or coined word, a nonce word, that has been repeated but has not gained acceptance beyond its original users or been published independently of the coiners.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn The word may be proposed, may be extremely new, or may be established only within a very limited group of people.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

A protologism becomes a neologism as soon as it appears in published press, on a website, or in a book, independently of the coiner—though, most definitively, in a dictionary. A word whose developmental stage is between that of a protologism (freshly coined) and a neologism (a new word) is a prelogism.

Overview

Protologisms constitute one stage in the development of neologisms. A protologism is coined to fill a gap in the language, with the hope of its becoming an accepted word.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn As an example, when the word protologism itself was coined—in 2003Template:Refn by the American literary theorist Mikhail Epstein—it was autological: an example of the thing it describes.Template:Refn

About the concept and his name for it, Epstein wrote:

I suggest calling such brand new words 'protologisms' (from Greek protos, meaning 'first, original' and Greek logos, meaning 'word'; cf. prototype, protoplasm). The protologism is a freshly minted word not yet widely accepted. It is a verbal prototype, which may eventually be adopted for public service or remain a whim of linguo-poetic imagination.Template:Sfnp

According to Epstein, every word in use started out as a protologism, subsequently became a neologism, and then gradually grew to be part of the language.Template:Sfnp

There is no fixed rule determining when a protologism becomes a stable neologism,Template:Sfnp and according to Kerry Maxwell, author of Brave New Words:

[A] protologism is unlikely to make the leap to neologism status unless society connects with the word or identifies a genuine need for it [...] there's no guarantee that simple exposure to these creations will be effective in getting them used, as discovered by British inventor Sir James Dyson when he fruitlessly attempted to promote a verb dyson (by analogy with hoover) in the early 2000s.Template:Sfnp

In science

It has been suggested protologisms are needed in scientific fields, particularly in the life sciences, where very complex interactions between partially understood components produce higher order phenomena.Template:Sfnp Nevertheless, until the unappreciated concept in question has been thoroughly investigated and shown to be a real phenomenon, it is improbable that the term would be used by anyone other than its creatorTemplate:Sfnp and achieve the status of neologism.

See also

• Hapax legomenon, a word occurring only once in a given context, such as in the works of a particular author
• Neologism, a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language.
• Nonce word, a word created for a single occasion
• Sniglet, a humorous word made up to describe something for which no dictionary word exists

Further reading

• Template:Cite magazine

External links

• List of protologisms Template:Webarchive
• List of protologisms by topic Template:Webarchive