Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2025 May 14

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May 14

New words coined in 2020s

Since the technology and revolution has advanced, there are new words coined. Although I agree that old words have new meanings, there are words that are coined in recent times. But aside from COVID-19, which is an actual neologism, and this pandemic have accelerated the new words coined rapidly in 2020, are there any new words that are coined and invented in decade of 2020s, and if so, can you list them? To me, new words are necessary to keep the English language ongoing, and words are what define the real world. But including all the aspects of the topic, which are technology, culture, science, politics, religion, philosophy, military, laws, history, arts, and finally literature, can you make an explanation on why are newer words coined in 2020s, are way too difficult to detect and notice, and what happens if its trending? Where could you find the new words coined in 2020s? Thank you if you if you would answer my question, since mine is informative. 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I googled "new words in 2024" and found quite a few references. You could do likewise for the years 2020 onward. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I searched it up too. But I wanted to see that if these type of words are attested. But, what are the words that are in first used in 2020s? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 20:03, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean by "attested" but hundreds of new words were added to dictionaries during that time, so it's quicker and simpler to do a web search. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:54, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can find many examples in this search: [1].  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:10, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The American Dialect Society chooses a "word of the year". It maybe a new word or a word that acquired new significance or relevance. You may find the chosen and candidate words interesting.

--Error (talk) 17:14, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Respelling

Why an /aɪ̯/ sound at the beginning of world is respelled as eye, not as y? For example, why is item respelled as EYE-təm and not as Y-təm? And why is an /aɪ̯/ sound at monosyllabic words before a consonant respelled with silent e, such as tight being TYTE and not TYT? --40bus (talk) 22:05, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Y by itself is not pronounced like a long I. EYE is pronounced like a long I. and TYTE would be pronounced with a long I, while TYT would probably be pronounced with a short I. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That long I is called like that because in Middle English it used to be /iː/, an actual long i. In the Great Vowel Shift it diphthongised via /ɛɪ̯/ to /aɪ̯/. In German it still has the initial value, in Dutch it got stuck at the intermediate. Y used to be /y/, unrounded to /i/ or (lax) /ɪ/, but thanks to frequent borrowing became a complete mess. The name of the letter became /waɪ̯/. That's why it isn't good for respelling item as Y-təm.

About that silent e: words like tide used to have two syllables: ti-de /ˈtiː.də/. The middle consonant was in the second syllable, making the first syllable open, leading to a free vowel. Without the final e, there's only one syllable and the vowel is (by default) checked. This rule is still used in Dutch. In English, the final /ə/ was dropped in speech, not in spelling, but the first vowel retained its free sound, leading to a spelling pattern where a single consonant followed by a word-final e indicates that the preceding vowel is free.

In the word tight something special happened. It used to be something like /tɪxt/ (in modern Dutch it's dicht /dɪxt/), with a checked vowel, but deletion of the /x/ in stages (from speech, not from spelling) caused the vowel to change to its free form.

Clear as mud? That's English spelling. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:25, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bugs's explanation of eye above is basically correct. The World Book Encyclopedia, intended for young readers, uses a respelling system that is quite similar to ours, and it also uses eye for an /aɪ̯/ constituting an entire syllable; but to avoid confusion it doesn't include silent e's in respellings, so it would indeed respell tight as "TYT". I don't know why it was felt necessary for our system to go with "TYTE". Deor (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]