Hapax Legomenon

I named this blog after my favorite term in linguistics, "hapax legomenon." Now, there's a twofold reason for this: first, I love the way the word sounds, I like the way it feels when I say it, and English-speakers just don't pepper their speech with enough Greek words these days.

The second reason has to do with the definition of hapax legomenon, also called nonce formations or occasionalisms. "There is a lovely technical term for a word that appears once in a body of text: a hapax legomenon... Greek for 'once said'," wrote Steven Pinker in his book, Words and Rules. Basically, it's a fancy term for a constructed word.

Now, it's agreed among linguists that one of the most fascinating thing about language is the fact that anyone can take a language and create an infinite variety of phrases and utterances with the words they know. Usually we talk about the way that words can be forever arranged and rearranged to fit within the patterns we call 'grammar' to create sentences of an unending variety.

But it goes further than that, to the fact that humans can also use words and parts of words, or simply series of sounds to create a new term that expresses exactly what the speaker wishes to express. Furthermore, the listener will generally understand the term.

With that I give my kudos to language, and everyone who uses it.

Yes, this blog is dedicated to you.