What are Neologisms?
Report 1
By: Tandi
Arakaki, Chad Honda,
Daisy
Ramil
PSY 409B, Fall
2008, Generation 28
Dr. Leon
James, Instructor, University of
Hawaii at Manoa
Class
Home Page
Introduction
As Generation 28 of PSY
409B The Unity Model of Marriage course taught by Instructor Dr. Leon James, our
goal for report one was to create a Neo Report as a team, jointly by three
students. Although one report was to be
authored by all three students, each student was to publish their own
individual version of the Neo Team Report in our own individual Web
folders.
Before taking this course, neither one of us in the
group had much knowledge behind the term “neologisms”. We were all rather oblivious to the
importance of neologisms in our class; more so to the implications neologisms
has on society. Although Dr. James
mentioned “neos” within the first weeks of class, it was not until we were
introduced to our first Neo Poem Challenge assignment, which involved teams A
and B generating a poem out of neologisms created by Dr. James in his Introduction to the Master
Neochart article, that we all started to gain a better understanding
of neologisms.
In his article, Dr. James defines neologisms as new
words, expressions, or brief sentences that a person creates because of a
desire to describe an experience, an opinion, a feeling, an ideology, etc. We live in a society where we hear and use
the same, constant phrases on a daily basis.
However, every day we also create neologisms when we speak, even when we
write, but because we are unaware of the true concept of neologisms, we
disregard them as just words and sentences in conversation that will probably
have little or no impact on society after they have been said. Dr. James’s article provided a list of
neologisms, which he created, that covered issues discussed in our Unity Model
of Marriage course, his Driving Psychology course, neologisms themselves, and
random neologisms he created in thought and conversation. Our own interest and awareness of neologisms
greatly increased once again when we were assigned Neo Construction Poems,
which involved each member in groups A and B to create up to 8 neologisms and
then combining them into poems, and Neo Fishing Poems, which involved “fishing”
or searching for neos created by other people and also combining them into poem
format.
Report
1, What is Neologisms? goes in depth into our research and our increased
understanding and knowledge of neologisms throughout the course. We provide a list of neologisms and a table
that displays the data we collected from those we surveyed in order to test the
awareness of others towards neologisms.
Following the data and our observations, we go into a discussion of Dr. James’s
Introduction to the Master Neochart article and follow up with our own
interpretations and analysis of research of neologisms found on the
Internet. This report that follows
hopes to provide a clearer understanding of neologisms through provided examples
and research, as well as to show the important implications of neologisms in
our society.
Objective
After
selecting ten listed items from Dr. James’s Master Neochart and constructing up
to ten neos of our own as a team, we organized the neos onto a table listing
with a column showing our predictions of what we thought would be the average
ratings of our friends, actual responses of rater A, rater B, and rater C, and
the average of the raters, and finally a column that answered either “Yes” or
“No” to whether or not our rating predictions matched the average ratings of
our raters. We then compared our
predictions with the data we received from a few raters and reported and
discussed the data and results. We followed with a discussion on the Introduction to the
Master Neochart in order to make note of and determine how the awareness of
the role of the neos in society could potentially affect our lives and also did
some outside research on the topic of neologisms and reported that research as
well. Finally, we stated our
conclusions on our overall report on neologisms.
Neologisms: Rating Survey Information
Definition:
Neologisms = A new word, expression, or usage
which a person makes up. The word “neo”
is short for “neologism.”
The
purpose of the survey was to test whether those surveyed could determine
whether the chosen 11 phrases or sayings created by Dr. James and the 10
expressions created by our group were indeed Neologisms. Our raters would rate each saying according
to the following rating scale:
Rate each item on the likelihood that it is a neo:
1= the likelihood that this is a neo 80% or higher (looks
like a neo)
2= the likelihood that this is a neo is around 50% (hard to
tell if it is a neo or not)
3= the likelihood that this is a neo is less than 30%
(doesn’t look like a neo)
We then combined our own
rating predictions and the actual ratings of our raters onto a table.
Neologisms: Predictions and Rating Table
|
Neos No. 1-11:
Master Neochart No. 12-21: Constructed
Neos |
Our Rating
Predictions: |
Actual
Responses Rater “A” |
Actual
Responses Rater ‘B” |
Actual
Responses Rater “C” |
Average Rating
(of A, B and C): |
Did the
responses match our predictions? Yes(Y) or No
(N) |
1. Creation and the universe exist for the purpose
of fostering this
love between a husband and a wife.
|
1 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
2 (averaged since all different) |
N |
|
2. Love (A)
perceives through the senses (S) what is usable for its fulfillment. |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
Y |
3. Natural
marriages on earth are designed by God to foster the psychological growth
of our inborn conjugial character.
|
2 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
N |
|
4. Once the
husband operates from the unity model, he is establishing an organic entity
called the conjoint self. |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
Y |
|
5. She receives
the conjugial from the Lord directly, while he does not. |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
Y |
6. The beginning purpose and the end
purpose of all creation is conjugial
love.
|
3 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
3 |
Y |
|
7. The love of
our conjugial partner gradually disengages us from the un-reality of selfhood
as an individual. |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
Y |
8. The natural marriage turns into a spiritual marriage as the
husband spends more of his time in the unity mood.
|
3 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
N |
9. The principal love in the unity model is to maintain
intimacy at all three levels – sensorimotor, cognitive, affective.
|
2 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
Y |
10. This affective conjunction is
reciprocal between masculine love and feminine love.
|
2 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
N |
|
11. This new
conjugial couple is within a passion of mutual love that intensifies and
magnifies progressively to endless eternity. |
1 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
N |
|
12. The idea of
reciprocals is soul mates destined to conjoin in unity. |
3 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
N |
|
13. In layer
seven the lives of this man and this woman are truly altruistic and
conjugial. |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
N |
|
14. Only in the
unity model can we completely reciprocate with our soul mate. |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
Y |
|
15. Through the
unity model, spiritual marriages that exist till endless eternity is a
reality. |
2 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
N |
|
16. In the
unity model, the man is no longer in need to dominate her nor to be equal
with her. |
1 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
N |
|
17. In the
unity model, he has the love to conjoin, to make her happy, and to combine
their souls. |
2 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
Y |
|
18. When soul
mates are united by the unity model, they will exist on earth and in heaven. |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
Y |
|
19. Phase three
of the unity model is when the man accepts that marriage to the woman is
forever. |
2 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
2 (average since all different) |
Y |
|
20. The equity
model is theoretically more sound than reality because it is likely that the
man will go back to the male-dominance model. |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
Y |
|
21. A man in
the male-dominance model and equity model is resistant to conjunction while a
woman fights for it. |
2 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
N |
Our team as a whole was
to construct up to 10 neologisms, either single words, phrases, or short
sentences. Neos 12 to 21 on the
previous predictions and rating table were our constructed neos, mostly
gathered from our previously assigned Neo Construction Poems. Since we needed to incorporate and
concentrate on the content and purpose of the course, which analyzes the Unity
Model of Marriage, we constructed neologisms that focused specifically on the
Unity Model of Marriage itself. We
purposely incorporated crucial concepts discussed throughout the semester, such
as “reciprocals,” “conjugial,” “spiritual marriages,” “conjoin,” and “soul mates”
into our neologisms.
Unlike the Layer 9 Male-Dominance Model in Marriage where the man’s
wants and needs are dominant over the woman and the Layer 8 Equity Model where
the man believes in the idea of “universal rights” and equality with the woman,
the Unity Model of Marriage in Layer 7 is definitely an upgrade, for the man
gains the unity mentality and the man is motivated to love the woman by making
her happy. According to Dr. James, “The
wife’s happiness is the pre-condition for the husband’s happiness.” The Equity Model is not guaranteed for it is
possible for the man to easily fall back into the Male-Dominance Model of
Marriage. In the Unity Model, the man
and the woman are created as reciprocals of each other so they can conjoin and
unite. When this model is achieved, a
couple is able to reach a spiritual marriage till endless eternity, which is
unlike a natural marriage of till death do us part. The spiritual marriage defines the marriage between a couple as
continuing into the afterlife. This
marriage is based on a conjugial love where the desire to be joined is present.
These ideas of the Unity Model are highlighted in most of our created
neologisms. Although this covers only a
small portion of what was discussed about the Unity Model throughout the
course, we feel that these ideas were essential to understanding the Unity
Model of Marriage and were ideas that were most interesting and most meaningful
to us individually.
Our
predictions for our twenty-one neologisms was either mostly number one (1) or
number two (2) using the rating scale shown in the table above with one (1)
being the likelihood that this is a neo 80% or higher (looks like a neo) and
number (2) being the likelihood that this is a neo around 50% (hard to tell if
it is a neo or not). We did have a few
number threes (3) in our predictions but we felt most of them have never been
mentioned and during our searches we have confirmed that these neologisms by
Dr. James and the ones composed by our group where not used. As for the three raters that we asked, they
mostly responded with either number one or number two for their responses to
Dr. James neologisms and our group’s neologisms. The response for number three was small from the three raters
because they also felt that they never heard of these phrases or
sentences. Although the words used in
the phrases and sentences were common words, the chances of all these words
being combined in these exact sentences, both written and spoken, were highly
unlikely.
The
data that we gathered was generally focused on our own predictions of the
twenty-one different neologisms composed from Dr. James’s Master Neochart and
our own neologisms and the ratings from three different raters. The results that we gathered were eleven
(11) “Yes” and ten (10) “No” when we asked “Did the responses from the raters
match our predictions?” The results
were surprising with it being almost even because we thought there would be
more “Yes” compared to “No”. We felt
that all these combinations of words to produce these phrases and sentences
were so unique to the individual emotion that created them, that the chances of
them being either written or spoken were highly unlikely. The ways that we concluded the results was
taking the average of the three raters and compare that number with our
predictions to see if it had match or did not match our predictions.
When
asked why the raters gave certain ratings, they claimed that they did not
really understand the concept of neither neologisms nor the ideas stated in the
neologisms. We think that the reason
they did not understand the different phrases or sentences is because they were
not knowledgeable about certain ideas such as conjugial love, unity model,
affective conjunctions, and spiritual marriages. Like our raters, these ideas were also new to us prior to taking
this course and we believe that had they understood some of these concepts,
their ratings could have possibly been different. Also, we found that after continuously explaining neologisms and what
they needed to do a couple more times they mostly understood. Other than the raters not fully
understanding what needed to be done at the beginning, we learned that the
meaning of neologisms should be known to the raters in order for them to give
accurate ratings. Also, we think that
it is important to give our raters some idea of what the class is about and let
them know what kind of information we are looking for from them. The reason the raters gave why they choose a
particular rating is the same reason we chose our predictions. If the rater thought that no one would know
or would have even heard of the words together in the phrases or sentences,
they gave a response of one (1) and if they felt that there was a fifty-fifty
chance it was heard before, they gave a two (2), and the rest, ratings of three
(3).
The Introduction to the
Master Neochart, an article by Dr. Leon James,
an instructor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, discusses
neologisms and the history and evolution of the production of neologisms in the
science of psychology, particularly through the experiences of Dr. Leon James
himself. Dr. James discusses his
process in the discovery of neologisms and the importance of neologisms because
of their use and influence on our every day lives. The article also provides a definition of neologisms, which
incorporates the ideas of Swedenborg in his Swedenborg
Reports. The article helps to
expand our awareness and the positive affects of the role of neos in society, as
well as realizing how neos are the norm rather than the exception. According to Dr. James, every speaker,
writer, and thinker has the ability to produce neologisms as a normal by
product of speaking, writing, and thinking.
How
does this expand your awareness of the role of neos in society?
According to Dr.
James’s article, neologisms, or neos for short, are new words, short phrases or
expressions, and sentences that are created from a desire to describe a new
experience, view, a concept, or an ideology.
These descriptions evolve from the information available in a person’s
memory and knowledge. These desires to
describe relate to a particular love, a love that wants to be explained and
expressed. Love, the affective,
generates sensorimotor neologisms, which are the expressions of affection, by
means of cognitive neologisms. Every
love or affection is different and therefore it is impossible for any two loves
to be the same. This is why love is
called here an affective neologism.
Because every love is different, it conjoins with a unique idea that is
compatible for that particular love.
Thus, every statement and expression that is elicited by a person can be
considered a neologism. Consequently
the study of neologisms is similar to the study of speech acts and
discourse. However, there is a
difference between neologisms and expressions even though our expressions are
always unique. According to merely
appearances, words or phrases that are spoken by one person may be
re-circulated and another will speak the same words or phrases. However what makes each word or phrase
unique for each person is the actuality of what is being said in that
particular situation where all situations are unique; hence the actual content
or meaning of the expression is what becomes a neologism.
How
does this potentially affect your life?
It is unlikely
for people to say the same exact sentences, unless the sentences are the few
common words that are repeated expressions common in our lives. The longer a sentence is, the more likely it
is a neologism. Neologisms are always
embedded in the sentences people create daily.
The expressions people write about, think about, and say are never just
random events, but rather there is a specific cause to making it happen. To determine whether a neologism is actually
a neologism, a zero entry must appear when the word, phrase, or sentence is
searched in Google or Yahoo in quotation.
When the entry is zero, the word, phrase, or sentence is therefore a
neologism, and thus an expression never used.
However, it is also possible that other people have used the same
expression, but it was not documented in the World Wide Web. When the entry is not zero, it is likely
that others have used the identical expression in the same way or in an
unrelated sense. Neos come in any
length for there are no limits to the number of words found in a
neologism. Most neologisms consist of
low probability combinations of words or phrases. According to Dr. James, “the probability of an expression being a
neologism approaches certainty in proportion to the number of words it
contains.”
Neologisms are
new words and new combination of words that are created when we are trying to
find a way to express our ideas or feelings and are therefore a type of record
keeping and cataloguing. By collecting
one’s own neologisms a person is able to keep track of his or her own
perceptions, insights, and experiences, which are created by their own
interests, values, and desires. From
the article, we understand that neologisms play a very important role in our
society because the moment a new word, phrase, or sentence is uttered, a new
feeling and emotion or idea is expressed.
These new expressions allow for thoughts to be shared and for them to
become part of the human experience. We
are surrounded by neologisms- they are found in conversation, in writings, and
in an individual’s thoughts. Dr.
James’s Introduction to the Master Neochart article shows us that through
production and documenting of neologisms, we can educate and enrich each
other’s mental minds in hopes of increasing awareness and possibly decreasing
ignorance on issues, opinions, experiences, and ideologies that are in our
community and society as a whole.
Dr. Leon James: Introduction to the
Master Neochart
According
to Dr. James’s article, The Spiritual
Significance of Neologisms, neologisms also have a spiritual
significance. Neologisms can come into
existence in the mental world and remain there forever. There is also such thing as evil neologisms where
evil means the corruption of good as well as good neologisms, which come from
God. Evil neologisms are called
anti-neologistic forces in the mental world of eternity. The good neologisms that exist in our mental
world of eternity are real forms of cognitive good that is in our minds. The good in us comes from God’s good through
the spiritual sun therefore what is good remains God’s good. There is also what Dr. James refers to as
the trinity of neos. The trinity refers
to the soul, mind and body. Therefore
when we produce neos we can produce them in the soul, mind as well as our
bodies.
1. The Trinity of neos we produce:
·
You are producing an affective neo when you have a
new love, intention, or motive.
·
You are producing a cognitive neo when you have a
new thought, plan, or principle.
·
You are producing a sensorimotor neo when you have
a new sensation, movement pattern, or verbal expression.
2. The trinity of divine human neos that God
produces:
·
God’s divine love is within every affective neo
·
God’s divine wisdom is within every cognitive neo
·
God’s divine proceeding is within every
sensorimotor neo
3. The
trinity of Three divine Aspects of God’s neos:
·
God’s affective organ comprises an integrated whole
in which infinite loves and purposes are present to eternity.
·
God’s cognitive organ comprises an integrated whole
in which infinite truths and principles are present to eternity.
·
God’s sensorimotor organ comprises an integrated
whole in which infinite sensations and motor determinations are present to
eternity.
Neologisms
are experienced by each individual subjectively as new ideas, insight, and
understanding of life is developed.
Neologisms bring new consciousness and wisdom as well as new perceptions
of the world into reality. The word
neologism in the spiritual sense means “New Word” or a higher form of
neologisms. Neologisms are created and
born in the minds of all individuals.
The neos we discover then become our mental children, which are
indestructible and exist forever in our mental world of eternity.
There is only one
mental world that every human being shares and is apart of. We are each born into it and it will remain
with us forever. The consciousness of
self is life. This spiritual life is
the life of our neos. Once we stop
producing neos we cease to truly have life and mentally we are dead. Rather then creating new neos as our world
around us develops our consciousness then becomes stupid and ignorant. Death is the equivalent to hell and in hell
there is no production of neos. The neo
is born in our sensorimotor organ. Neos
created in the sensorimotor layer makes itself known to the world through our
language and words that are spoken, heard and even written. The neo lives within the meaning of our
verbal expressions when it is spoken by the creator or written by the creator.
As
Dr. James says, every time a neologism is constructed by an individual,
humanity’s intellectual evolution expands and grows. Meaning every time someone comes up with a new neologism, this
means that our minds and our surroundings are developing and growing. New ideas are being created and discovered
nearing closer and closer to a new and greater excellence. Whatever thought occurs in one person’s mind
has an effect for every human being alive.
Dr. Leon James: The Spiritual Significance of Neologisms
We seem to be
living in an age where creating and inventing new words is an ability anyone
can accomplish. These new vocabulary
words that have been added to the English language are called neologisms.
“Neologism” came from the Greek word with “neo” meaning “new” and “logos”
meaning “word”. However, it has not
been accepted into many common languages.
The term “neologism” was created around 1803. A neologism is a new word, phrase or expression created by an
individual. In psychology, neologism is
a word used to describe the use of words that bring meaning to an individual
who uses them independent of their common meaning. Throughout the history of the English language countless words
have been borrowed from other languages and incorporated into our own. Neologism has a specific meaning to the
person who uses that neologism. Using
specific suffixes or prefixes to a word can create neologisms. It can be formed by abbreviations or even
acronyms.
Neologisms
commonly occur in cultures that are rapidly changing and where there is an easy
and fast spread of information.
Neologisms are often popular through mass media, interactions with
people, the academic profession, etc. and at one point, the phrases, words,
terms, etc. that we use today was our language of neologism. It can be known as part of a language, but
what was used before may not be used today.
Therefore, those words, phrases, etc. disappear from common use. One of the many factors that neologisms need
in order to continue is the acceptance by the public, published in
dictionaries, etc. But if a word,
phrase, etc. is old or used in general, the word, phrase, etc. will no longer
be a neologism. Neologisms may take a
long time to be “old”. Having the
public, culture, etc. have acceptance is more important than the time it takes
to become “old”.
Neologisms are
often created by combining existing words in which linguistics come into play or by giving
words new and/or unique suffixes or prefixes.
The use of portmanteau is used when creating neos when
for example you are trying to blend two or more words. There are also other ways to create neos,
for example, the use of abbreviation, acronyms or maybe something heard. The site “The International Dictionary of Neologisms”
gives some examples of some words or phrases that you might have heard of and
are indeed considered neologisms.
“naked funeral” = describes the emotional sadness, when
two lovers who are splitting up, and knowingly have sexual intimacy for the
last time.
“you gon go?” = meaning “Are you
going?” Example in a sentence: “You gon
go to the movie?”
Technology and Neologisms
We also wanted to add how the
use of technology has allowed for better opportunities for the creation of many
different neologisms. We live in an age
where technology is all around us and we all use it in some form or another
throughout our day whether it be on a blog, text messaging on your phone,
writing an email, etc.
Nowadays, mostly everyone has a
mobile (cell) phone to communicate and to be in contact at all times. The use of mobile phones has created a new
way of creating neologisms because through text messaging and the use of I.M.
(Instant Messaging) it has becomes much easier to send short messages to your
friends, family, co-workers, etc. with the use of abbreviations. With the use of abbreviations you create
words that are not known in the English language. Therefore once you have searching Google or another search engine
with results ending up with zero those new words can be considered a neo. The terms themselves used for creating neos
such as “text,” “SMS,” etc. are abbreviations used by “texters” when sending a
message.
We found it amazing how “neos”
are being produced everyday by daily users of cell phones, PDAs, etc. and they
don’t even know they created a neo.
Texting has become the way for most people to communicate and knowing
how to use technology and knowing the different “neos” used while texting seems
to have become a must in today’s society.
For some people, texting has become a way of life.
·
Scientific neologisms are words created to describe new scientific discoveries:
§
Black hole
·
Technological neologisms are words created to describe inventions:
§
Videotape
§
Radar
·
Political neologisms are words created to make some kind of political or
rhetorical point, perhaps with an eye to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis:
§
Meritocracy
§
Political correctness
·
Pop-culture neologisms (which may be considered a sub section of slang)
are words evolved from mass media content or used to describe popular culture
phenomenon:
§
Jumping the shark
§
Scooby Gang
·
Imported neologisms are words originating in another language. Mostly used to express ideas that no
equivalent term in the native language:
§
Zen
§
Mu
Assignments on Neologisms
Below
are a few examples of Neo poems that we have made up for class. These first set of neo poems were for our first
Neo Poem Challenge assignment and were picked from Dr. James Master Neochart
at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/neochartp1.htm. The assignment was to choose neologisms from
the chart that pertained to the course, combine it into poem format, and then
present it to the class for our team presentation in order to win a bonus
point.
Tandi Arakaki:
“A man is normally
scared of the idea of unity with the same woman forever”
“You can’t be good until
you want to”
“What we choose from our
own love remains forever as ours”
“We then continue
immortal life in the mental world of eternity”
“They are then united to
eternity as soul mates”
“Love invents what is
pleasing to it”
“Love rules and creates
all of a person’s eternal life”
“Every love has a built
in power to consume itself”
“Love is consummated
when it conjoins itself to a thought”
“Every
love is unique, possessing some unique feature of good, some unique virtue of
quality”
Daisy Ramil:
“The beginning purpose and the end purpose of all creation is conjugial
love”
“Creation and the universe exist for the purpose of fostering this love
between a husband and a wife”
“All other purposes in the running of the universe are subordinated to
this one purpose”
“The love of our conjugial partner gradually disengages us from the
un-reality of selfhood as an individual”
“She receives the conjugial from the Lord directly, while he does not”
“He must reciprocate by conjoining himself to her”
“Hence it is that the conjunction is possible between them, being in
reciprocal loves”
“This new conjugial couple is within a passion of mutual love that
intensifies and magnifies progressively to endless eternity”
“They absolutely adore and live for this sentiment, feeling, emotion”
“The ruling love of the highest mental layer in heaven is conjugial
love”
The
second assignment, Neo Construction Challenge, was to create our own neo poems
by making up quotes. To check that our
neos were not used before, we used Google and other search engines to do
searches by putting the quote in quotation marks and making sure it results in
zero (0) search results. As part of the
assignment, the neos we created had to be limited to the topics discussed in our
PSY 409b course titled “The Unity Model of Marriage.” All the different teams had fun creating their own neos and some
of them were even funny and/or sounded funny.
After doing this assignment we were amazed that we made our own quotes
and that nobody else ever said it before.
Below are some of our teams’ created neologism poems:
Chad Honda:
“Every love is
its own, having some unique feature of good or quality”
“Every love has built in power to grow itself”
“Love gets through the senses what
is usable for its purpose”
“Love grows to formulate a plan or
method of attaining love”
“Our ruling love makes everything happen in our dream environment”
“The meanings we get and become
aware of are those that are selected by our love”
“We speak according to thoughts
and feelings, which come from love”
“When we are
free, we will to think and to do that which we love”
Daisy Ramil:
“It is a beautiful
thought that when one is born, another is born for him or her.”
“The idea of
reciprocals, soul mates destined to conjoin in unity.”
“In layer seven the
lives of this man and this woman are truly altruistic and conjugial.”
“Only in the unity model
can we completely reciprocate with our soul mate. Through unity, spiritual
marriages that exist till endless eternity is a reality.”
“For the man is no
longer in need to dominate, nor to be equal with her.”
“He has the love to
conjoin, to make her happy, and to combine their souls.”
“Soul mates are united
and will exist on earth and in heaven.”
An increase in neologisms is a clear
indication of our ever-increasing world of innovation and change. As we are developing and progressing, new
words are necessary in order to maintain and keep up with all our advances in
technology, products, as well as services such as the Internet. In our everyday life we create new words,
phrases, sentences, and even paragraphs that we are not aware of that mean
different things to different people.
Without neologisms we will never move forward and discover new things. In regards to neologisms in psychology, it
helps by bringing new words and meaning to each individual. Neologisms contribute to the increase of new
knowledge.
Neologism and how
words, phrases, etc. are created hasn’t been neglected, but keeping track of
whether those phrases, words, etc. are used, we believe has been the issue
neglected. For example, say about ten
years ago the word “goat” was created and it was never heard of or used before,
so the word “goat” was a neo but only up to what maybe 5 years ago the word
“goat” is now part of the English language.
The history of the word “goat” has not been tracked through the past ten
years knowing who said it first or when it was first used in the English
language. Of course, “goat” was created
way before ten years ago, we just used it as an example to show our point of
the history of words, phrases, etc. that nothing has been official
documented.
We feel that neologism is an
important issue that we need to take a look at more because future generations,
maybe one-hundred years from now, may want to know how words we use today were
created or if they were created even before this current period we are in. Of course, keeping track of all words, phrases,
etc. would be really hard to do and what Dr. James mentions in his
“Introduction to the Master Neochart” about searching Google and Yahoo,
checking these search engines might be the only way to confirm if something we
say has already been said before or used by someone else.
The use of neologisms is a totally
new concept for our group because we never heard of it before taking Dr.
James’s class. But now that we know
what neologisms are we are more aware of what we are saying because we can come
up with new phrases, words, sentences, etc. that has never been created
before. With the use of these new
phrases, sentences, etc. we create, there can be a change in the way we talk to
others because the same phrases or sentence can mean two different things in
English and in Psychology.
Advice
for Future Generations
To
all future students of Dr. James’s PSY 409b: The Unity Model of Marriage class,
we strongly recommend that you start working on your homepage for the course
once Dr. James has assigned it to you and also upload your reports as soon as
possible. If you are only slightly
familiar or not familiar at all as to how to create homepages, we strongly
recommend that you again start early and get help from Dr. James, friends,
co-workers, or anyone you know that knows how to create homepages. Although Dr. James gives step-by-step
instructions, it is very tricky and each format for uploading is
different. If you have a Mac, we would
suggest that you use a Windows based computer because it makes things easier in
terms of creating the homepage and uploading and downloading your files. However, if you love and know your Mac
pretty well and know how to create WebPages using your Mac then please go ahead
and do so. We found that during the
process of creating our own homepages and reports it was a lot easier to use a
PC when it comes to saving files as WebPages and uploading it to the class
website. If you never created a
WebPages before, this is good experience because other classes that you might
take in the future may require a WebPages of your own or even to share a
WebPages with your follow classmates.
Therefore knowing how to create one will come in real handy. With the way technology is expanding it seems
inevitable that one day everything will be on the internet and papers will be
of no use.
From
what we saw and experienced in this class and in other classes that required
some kind of WebPages design, students who are not familiar with creating
WebPages eventually dropped the course because they did not know how to create
one. Also, since they were not familiar
with assignments, reading, etc. that were all posted on the class homepage
which is where all the information is located, they dropped the course. But knowing how to create a WebPages will
only benefit you now and in the future.
The topic of the course might stand out to you and you may ask yourself
“neo,” “marriage” etc. and it is highly likely that you will question what this
course is all about. This might scare
some students, but taking this course gave us a new look as to how we view
marriage and opened our minds to the world of neologisms. After you take this course you might just
catch yourself saying a brand new word, phrase, or expression and then you’ll
say, “Hey, that’s a neo!” We know that
we have.
Another
piece of advice for future generations is to know and understand the Threefold
Self and the Twelve Layers of Mental Anatomy, as well as follow along with all
the new concepts covered in class discussions and in readings. Knowing about these things will definitely
help you better understand the course and will make it much more easier for you
to actually do your own presentations and reports. Always ask questions and try to relate what you learn to things
that have happened or are currently happening in your own personal life. This definitely helps to create a better
understanding of the material and also keeps you entertained and interested in
class. Just read Dr. James’s Lecture Notes, keep up with the readings
and assignments for the course, and participate in the class discussions and
activities and you’ll be all set. Good
luck!
References (APA
format)
1.
Fowler, H.W. The King’s English. Retrieved Nov. 16, 2008, from http://www.bartleby.com/116/103.html
a.
This is a book by Fowler and in chapter one of the book, titled
“Vocabulary” it talks about how words came about, how they were documented,
etc. and he mentions neologism and how different phrases, words, sentences,
etc. are created. It also gives
examples of neologisms.
2.
James, Dr. Leon. Introduction to the Master Neochart. Retrieved Nov. 5,
2008, from http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/neochartp1.htm
a.
This is Dr. James’s own site about neologisms and how he created
them. He gives a great background about
neologisms, how they are used, what he created from when he started till today,
etc. This is a great site to get
started with neologisms and find out information about what it is and how to
search if you created a neo.
3. James, Dr. Leon. The Spiritual Significance
of Neologisms. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2008, from
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/neologisms3p2.htm#trinity
a.
This is Dr. James’s site concerning the spiritual aspect of
neologisms. This site gives great
information about where neologisms are located and where they come from. It
also gives examples of the Trinity of neos.
4.
James. Dr. Leon. The Unity Model
of Marriage Fall 2008 PSY 409B class. http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy28/classhome-g28.htm
a.
This is our class web page that shows our team presentations, lecture
notes and our class folder for everyone’s homepage and their reports.
5.
Neologism. History of Neologism. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2008, from http://www.public-domain-content.com/encyclopedia/History/Coined.shtml
a.
This site gives a general overview of neologism and the history behind
it. It also lists different types of
neologisms and what they are used for.
For example, “scientific neologisms” are words to describe new
scientific discoveries. This is a very
short and to the point site on neologisms and its history.
6.
Neologism. Wikipedia. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism
a.
As we all know Wikipedia is like the free version of an encyclopedia and
generally reliable with the information it posts but it gives a general
overview of neologisms and its history.
The information on this site was very helpful and gave the information
for our opening paragraph under the “Research of Neologism”.
7.
New Words: Neologisms. Retrieved Nov. 8, 2008, from http://enjoywords.com/neologisms.html.
a.
This site was able to give us a little history about neologisms as well
as its origins. It gave us a few
examples of neos as well as how the words came about and why. This site also
explained how a new word or neo could eventually become a “regular” word over
time as more and more people use it.
8.
The International Dictionary of Neologisms. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from
http://www.neologisms.us/
a.
This site gives new neologisms that we submitted and a general overview
of neologism.
9.
Compound (linguistics).
Wikipedia. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_noun_and_adjective
a.
This site talks about neologisms and how linguistics is used in the
forming of neos. It gives examples of
compound words, phrases, etc.
10. Portmanteau. Wikipedia.
Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau_word
a.
It gives a definition of portmanteau and how the use of it can create
neologisms. It also gives some history
of how things originated and formed.