Monday 28 December 2009

What's in a word?


Ariel Leve, journalist and columnist with The Sunday Times Magazine in a recent article wrote about hybrid words or made up words such as: unfriend, sexting, tramp stamp, frenemy and more. Leve thinks: “Maybe it all started with the labradoodle. A crossbreed of a Labrador retriever and a poodle, these adorable (and hypoallergenic) dogs introduced a whole new area of possibilities for cute word combinations. In my building in New York, there’s a cockerpoo, a shnoodle, a spoodle, a doodle and an eskimoodle. Those are fine but then there’s also a bug. This is a boston terrier and a pug.
And therein lies the problem. No one will ever know what a bug is. It’s far too obtuse. As soon as you start saying you’re dog is a bug, you’re asking for trouble.”

Labradoodles do exist as the picture shows. Hence the word has its meaning even though the computer’s spell-check does not like it. Also you will not find it on the Kennel Club’s list of breeds or in the FCI’s (Fédération Cynologique Internationale ) breed standards.

If you want to read Ariel Leve’s article follow this link:
http://www.ariel-leve.com/cassandra/29_nov_09.html

2 comments:

Kasha said...

Great post! Makes me ponder what words really mean these days. I just figured out that BOL means Bark Out Loud. Ay yi yi! Can't we just stick to the language I had to take endless spelling tests on? Happy New year!
kasha and Africa
http://trainingboerboels.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

I had no idea about thi new breed. Thanks for sharing this info and others as well. I lokie your blog a lot!