What are Neologisms?

Report 1
Author: Chad Honda

Co-Authors: Tandi Arakaki & Daisy Ramil
PSY 409B, Fall 2008, Generation 28
Dr. Leon James, Instructor, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Class Home Page

 

 

The Republic of Neologisms, Thinkin’ Lincoln: A Weekdaily Webcomic By: Miles Grover

 

 

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


Discussions of Group’s Neologisms

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.

 

Comparison of Predictions and Raters


        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). 

 

Discussion: Introduction to the Master Neochart

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

 

Discussion: The Spiritual Significance of Neologisms

 

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

 

Research on 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.

 

Types of Neologism:

·         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:

Sentential Neos

“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:

Conjugial Love

“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:

Soul mates

 

“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.”

 

Conclusion

        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
    1. 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. 

 

  1. James, Dr. Leon. Introduction to the Master Neochart. Retrieved Nov. 5, 2008, from  http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/neochartp1.htm
    1. 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.

 

  1. James. Dr. Leon.  The Unity Model of Marriage Fall 2008 PSY 409B class.  http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy28/classhome-g28.htm

 

  1. Neologism. History of Neologism. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2008, from http://www.public-domain-content.com/encyclopedia/History/Coined.shtml

 

  1. Neologism. Wikipedia. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism

 

  1. New Words: Neologisms. Retrieved Nov. 8, 2008, from http://enjoywords.com/neologisms.html.

 

  1. The International Dictionary of Neologisms. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from http://www.neologisms.us/

 

  1. Compound (linguistics).  Wikipedia. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_noun_and_adjective

 

  1. Portmanteau.  Wikipedia.  Retrieved Dec. 3, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau_word

 

G28 Class Home Page