Keep Your English Up to Date – Angličtina Youradio Talk

Profesor David Crystal: One of the big questions always asked about a language: “how do new words come into being?” Well, you can borrow them from other languages of course; a lot of English words are like that. But one of the lesser-known ways of forming new words is to form a blend – and a blend is when you run two words together to make a third word. And people have done it since the beginning of English actually. To take a recent example: alcopops – carbonated fruit flavoured drinks containing alcohol – a very controversial thing it was when they first came in a few years ago, because it was obviously being aimed at children, and people were very concerned that children would now have some alcohol introduced into them that they weren’t expecting. But it’s the word I want to talk about today – a very interesting word indeed! Alco-pops. Alco is obviously the first part of the word, shortened version of "alcohol". And pops is the second part of the word. Pops you might not know so much about. It has quite a long-standing usage. It’s basically the word for lemonade once upon a time. Pop bottles – because of the sound that’s made when a cork is drawn out of an effervescing drink [spot: cork being pulled out of a bottle] – that sort of sound! – and pops became a very quick sound symbolic way of expressing that kind of notion; so the two words have come together: alcohol and pops …and becomes alco-pops. to come into being - znikat borrowed words - cizí slova blend - složenina alcopops - perlivý alkoholický nápoj s ovocnou příchutí carbonated - perlivý, s bublinkami aimed at - zamířeno na once upon a time - bylo nebylo, kdysi dávno to be concerned - obávat se pop - perlivý nápoj pull out - vytáhnout

There are lots of words like this in English. Brunch is another one – for a mixture of breakfast and lunch, and you can actually have quite a fun game making these blends up yourself. For instance, if you decide that you want to invent a cross between a helicopter and a bicycle shall we say? Well, make a blend about it. You could call it a "helicycle" for instance, or maybe a "bicopter". brunch (mixture of breakfast and lunch) - pozdní bohatá snídaně to make up - vytvořit (vymyslet) a cross between - kříženec mezi to make a blend - spojit dohromady

Prefixes, almost by definition, don't occur as separate words. I mean, that's what they're for: they're for modifying a word, occurring before a word, and making it change it’s meaning - happy, un-happy, national, de-nationalise. They don't normally occur as words on their own. You've perhaps heard 'anti' - he's very 'anti' something, a-n-t-i. Or he's very 'pro' something - well they're prefixes which have just suddenly become different words. Now they've been around for a very long time. A recent one, absolutely fascinating one, is this prefix 'dis': d-i-s, or sometimes d-i-s-s. It's from the word 'disrespect', to show disrespect to somebody, from the noun, by insulting language, or insulting behaviour. It means basically to put somebody down. It's American, black English slang, and it's been around since about 1980. And what's happened, it's come to be used as a full verb. You can say now 'I dissed him' - to diss, I dissed him - or 'stop dissing her'. And that's the interesting thing, that it's the prefix that's become the verb! It's a most remarkable development. prefix - předpona to occur - objevit se to modify - změnit, pozměnit he's very 'anti - velký odpůrce he's very 'pro' - zastánce they've been around - existují disrespect - neúcta, nezdvořilost, urážka to show disrespect (to put somebody down) - urážet, zesměšňovat to diss - urážet, zesměšňovat, vysmívat se it's been around since - existuje od…

I was watching a docusoap on the television the other day. A what, you might say? A docu-soap. Well, it’s another one of these blend-words, where two words have come together to make a third word. In this particular case, I’m talking about a TV genre, which mixes a documentary programme and a soap. Now documentary programmes we all know, and these are particular fly-on-the wall documentaries we’re talking about now, where people are carrying on their everyday lives, doing their ordinary things and yet being televised or radio-recorded at the same time. But why soap? Why are these things called soap operas? Well that goes back to the 1930s and it was probably because some of the early sponsors of radio programmes at the time and television programmes were soap manufacturers, and so the idea came that a soap was one of these everyday, you know, washing machine kind of dramas. docusoap - televizní program (něco mezi dokumentem a soap operou (kamera nezúčastněně sleduje každodenní život skutečné rodiny, skupiny studentů a nebo třeba osudy doktorů a pacientů v nemocnici. Příběhy nepíší scénáristé, postavy neztvárňují herci, ale přesto se o jakýsi příběh ze života jedná.) soap opera - seriál ze života s obyčejnými hrdiny (washing machine kind of dramas) fly-on-the wall - moucha na zdi to be televised - natočit televizní kamerou that goes back to - datuje se od…

And so a docusoap is a documentary attempt to take one of these programmes and put it into an everyday circumstance. It’s not the only word of its kind – docudrama is another one, for a dramatised film based on a semi-fictional interpretation of real events. Oh, and don’t forget, it’s used in the novel as well, in literature. We talk about “factions” – documentary fiction in the novel – it’s a blurring of reality and fiction: very popular these days! docudrama - hraný dokument semi-fictional - dramatizace skutečných událostí fiction - beletrie factions - spojení beletrie a literatury faktu a blurring of reality and fiction - smazání rozdílů mezi skutečností a fikcí

In a vote, in 1998, the American Dialect Society looked for 'the new word that was most likely to succeed'. And they had an accolade "the word of the year". In that particular year, it wasn't a word at all, it was...e-! E -hyphen, the prefix, meaning electronic of course, and you'll find it in e-mail of course, these days, a lot. Well, why did they think it was going to be such a successful development? Well because in the mid-1990s they had noticed, the American Dialect Society had noticed how many people were using this e- prefix and applying it to all kinds of circumstances. And in the 1990s you got all these developments: e-books (electronic books); e-voting (electronic voting); you could get a loan from a company by e-mail, and it would be an e-loan. There were e-newsletters, e-securities, e-shopping, hundreds more. And people after a while began to play with the word - you will have heard this too: you know about retail and retailing. Well now you can have e-tail and e-tailing, because that's retail shopping over the internet. And of course it didn't take long until people started to complain about the way in which it was over-used. In fact a couple of years later, one of the big internet magazines said, "this is a word, this is a prefix that has to go!” everybody is using it too much. Well, it hasn't gone - it's here to stay. E-speak is the future! hyphen - pomlčka apply - aplikovat, používat e-books, voting, loan, newsletters - elektronické knihy, hlasování, půjčka, securities - informační buletin, akcie retail/ e-tail - obchod v drobném to complain - stěžovat si over-used - zneužívat that has to go - musí zmizet

You've seen it on television, or in the street, hundreds of times, thousands of times. Two people come towards each other, they obviously know each other very well, and they start to kiss each other - but it's not a full frontal kiss. Now what happens, one person puts the cheek against the other person's cheek and they have what is often called an 'air' kiss. They make a kissing noise, which shows that they're coming together, as great intimates, but it's not a real kiss at all. And many people then give this air kiss a noise, a word, and it's usually 'mwah', 'mwah' - something like that. Now, how d'you write it? Well nobody knows quite how to write it, but it's really m-w-a-h. I saw it written in about the mid-nineties for the first time. And, there's a plural too: "there's lots of mwahs about these days" I remember reading in somebody's journal at one point. It's an affectation, it's associated with a social elite - but everybody does it to a degree or another. What's unusual is to get the effect coming out as a word. It's a sort of 'sound symbolic' word - it's a lovely way of expressing the actual noise that takes place when you do a phoney kiss of this kind. And I've never done it myself - I'm not a 'mwah' type of person - but I think an awful lot of people are. I certainly don't think I've ever heard it on the radio, and certainly not as a way of saying goodbye to listeners - but I'll try it out and see what happens, so 'mwah'!! a full frontal kiss - polibek na ústa mwah - zvuk vydávaný při předstíraném polibku při setkání (tvář na tvář) journal - deník to a degree - do určité míry phoney kiss - předstíraný polibek

Now, nobody knows how many abbreviations there are in the English language, or in any language for that matter – half a million in one big set of dictionaries I’ve got: half a million abbreviations, can you imagine it! They’re very important, abbreviations, because they save time and they add familiarity; it’s a way of gaining rapport. I don’t say, "I’m in the British Broadcasting Corporation studio", I say, "I’m in the BBC studio"…it adds a sort of familiarity, doesn’t it. Now there are written abbreviations and spoken abbreviations, and the written ones are the ones that are interesting today – because you can have letters like U.N. for United Nations and you can have words like UNESCO for the other organisation. Now, faqs – you’ve seen them a thousand times I suppose on computer screens – are computer text files containing a list of questions and answers, especially basic stuff on news groups where you want to find a quick reply. It’s not a universally spoken word. You don’t say I’ve got some faqs – because that could be very misleading, it could sound like facts, f-a-c-t-s. So most people use it as an initialism, they spell it out: F A Q. And it’s beginning to be used now in a more general way, outside the internet setting. People talk about F.A.Q.s in all kinds of non-computer circumstances. I saw it on a church notice board once. I’ll leave you to guess what the questions were. abbreviations - zkratky for that matter - ostatně adds a sort of familiarity - dodává na důvěrnosti gaining rapport - navazujete určitý vztah faqs (frequently asked questions) - obligátní otázky – často pokládané otázky misleading - zavádějící church notice - nástěnka v kostele

Now that’s a catch phrase from a film – the film title this time. I mean, people often don’t take film titles and make them catch phrases. M-o-n-t-y, a name (capital 'M'). Now it had existed before as a phrase – but this was a new film, in 1997, a British film about a group of unemployed men, who take their clothes off to earn some money. In fact the origin of the word is back in the 1980s, a rather obscure word actually – nobody quite knows where it comes from. It might have come from a firm of clothing manufacturers, famous men’s tailors called 'Montague Burton', a complete suit of clothing in the 1970s, -80s, and say, we were "wearing the full Monty" – and of course, talking about the lack of clothing since the film came along. So in another words, the modern meaning of the phrase is "everything that we need" or "…is appropriate". If you’re packing a suitcase you might say "I’ve got the full Monty" now; you’re packing a car, "I’ve got the full Monty"; and when this programme is over, you’ll have had "the full Monty" ….at least about this expression, too! a catch phrase - okřídlené rčení full Monty - všechno, co potřebujeme, všechno, co je třeba unemployed - nezaměstnaný they take their clothes off - svlékají se where it comes from - odkud to pochází wearing the full Monty - od hlavy až k patě oblečen od Montyho appropriate - příslušný

Technology always has an influence on language. When printing came in, it brought new words into the language. When broadcasting first started new words came into the language. And now the internet has come along so it’s not surprising that quite a large number of new words have come into English vocabulary since, especially the last 10 years really since the www came into being. And of course if you’ve got emails, and most people have these days, you will have encountered the word Spam. Spam flooding your email box with ads or other unwanted messages. But why the word Spam for this sort of thing. Spam was originally a tinned meat back in the 1930s, a brand name for a particular kind of cold meat. But it became very fashionable when Monty Python, the satirical television comedy series back in the 70s and 80s they has a sketch where just for fun they had spam with every item on the restaurant menu - Bacon and spam, egg and spam, ham and spam, spam and spam. Spam spam spam spam spam… and they actually sang a song about I and it caught on. And therefore it became a real part of the language meaning any unwanted material of any kind and so when the internet came along it wasn’t surprising really that spam became part of that kind of experience. And the evidence that it’s become part of the language is not just because of the noun spam which you might expect to see in the internet context but because it’s generated other kinds of linguistic expression as well. You’ve now got verbs based upon it, and adjectives based upon it. You can now have ‘I’ve been spammed’ or ‘somebody’s spamming me’ and the actual people who do the work themselves who send all these horrible emails out to everybody so that we’re flooded with these things, what are they called? Well there’s a new noun, they’re called ‘spammers’. printing - tisk broadcasting - vysílání to encounter - setkat se s něčím spam (any unwanted material of any kind) - cokoliv nechtěného junk mail - poštou rozesílaná nechtěná reklama ads (advertisements) - reklama tinned meat - maso v konzervě brand name - značka it became fashionable - přišlo do módy it caught on - ujalo se, stalo se populárním 'I‘ve been spammed' - bombardují mě nabídkami spammers - ti, kteří rozesílají spam