I'm a lexicographer. I make dictionaries. And my job as a lexicographer is to try to put all the words possible into the dictionary. My job is not to decide what a word is; that is your job.
Ja sam leksikografkinja. Ja stvaram rječnike. I moj posao kao leksikografkinje jest da pokušam staviti sve moguće riječi u rječnik. Moj posao nije odlučiti što je riječ; to je vaš posao.
Everybody who speaks English decides together what's a word and what's not a word. Every language is just a group of people who agree to understand each other. Now, sometimes when people are trying to decide whether a word is good or bad, they don't really have a good reason. So they say something like, "Because grammar!" (Laughter) I don't actually really care about grammar too much -- don't tell anybody.
Svatko tko govori engleski odlučuje što je riječ a što nije riječ. Svaki jezik je tek grupa ljudi koja se dogovara o međusobnom razumijevanju. Ponekad, kad ljudi pokušavaju odlučiti je li riječ dobra ili loša, nemaju stvarno dobar razlog. Pa kažu nešto poput: "Zbog gramatike!" (Smijeh) Ja se ne brinem previše za gramatiku -- nemojte nikome ovo reći.
But the word "grammar," actually, there are two kinds of grammar. There's the kind of grammar that lives inside your brain, and if you're a native speaker of a language or a good speaker of a language, it's the unconscious rules that you follow when you speak that language. And this is what you learn when you learn a language as a child. And here's an example: This is a wug, right? It's a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of these. There are two ... Audience: Wugs. Erin McKean: Exactly! You know how to make the plural of wug. That rule lives in your brain. You never had to be taught this rule, you just understand it. This is an experiment that was invented by a professor at [Boston University] named Jean Berko Gleason back in 1958. So we've been talking about this for a long time.
Ali, riječ 'gramatika', u stvari, postoje dvije vrste gramatike. Postoji gramatika koja živi u vašoj glavi i ako ste izvorni govornik ili dobar govornik jezika to su nesvjesna pravila koja slijedite kada govorite taj jezik. A to je ono što naučite kada učite jezik kao dijete. Evo primjera: Ovo je vag, točno? To je vag. Evo još jednog. Imamo dva komada. Imamo dva... Publika: "Vaga." Erin McKean: Točno! Znali ste kako napraviti plural od vag. To pravilo živi u vašoj glavi. Nitko vas nije morao naučiti tom pravilu, vi ga jednostavno razumijete. Ovo je jedan eksperiment koji je osmislila profesorica na [Bostonskom Sveučilištu] pod imenom Jean Berko Gleason, 1958. Pričamo o ovome već dugo.
Now, these kinds of natural rules that exist in your brain, they're not like traffic laws, they're more like laws of nature. And nobody has to remind you to obey a law of nature, right? When you leave the house in the morning, your mom doesn't say, "Hey, honey, I think it's going to be cold, take a hoodie, don't forget to obey the law of gravity." Nobody says this. Now, there are other rules that are more about manners than they are about nature. So you can think of a word as like a hat. Once you know how hats work, nobody has to tell you, "Don't wear hats on your feet." What they have to tell you is, "Can you wear hats inside? Who gets to wear a hat? What are the kinds of hats you get to wear?" Those are more of the second kind of grammar, which linguists often call usage, as opposed to grammar.
Ova vrsta prirodnih pravila koja postoje u vašoj glavi nisu poput prometnih zakona, već su više kao prirodni zakoni. A nitko vas ne treba podsjećati da poštujete prirodni zakon, zar ne? Kada napuštate dom ujutro, mama vam ne kaže "Dušo, mislim da će biti hladno, uzmi jaknu, ne zaboravi poštivati zakon gravitacije." Nitko to ne kaže. Postoje druga pravila koja se više odnose na manire, nego su povezana s prirodom. Možete misliti na riječ poput šešira. Jednom kada naučite kako funkcionira šešir, nitko vam ne treba reći: "Ne nosi šešir na nogama." Ono što vam trebaju reći je: "Možete li šešire nositi unutra? Tko nosi šešir? Koje vrste šešira se nose?" To je više druga vrsta gramatike, koju lingvisti često nazivaju upotreba, kao suprotnost gramatici.
Now, sometimes people use this kind of rules-based grammar to discourage people from making up words. And I think that is, well, stupid. So, for example, people are always telling you, "Be creative, make new music, do art, invent things, science and technology." But when it comes to words, they're like, "Don't! No. Creativity stops right here, whippersnappers. Give it a rest." (Laughter) But that makes no sense to me. Words are great. We should have more of them. I want you to make as many new words as possible. And I'm going to tell you six ways that you can use to make new words in English.
Ponekad ljudi koriste ove gramatike zasnovane na pravilima kako bi obeshrabrili ljude da izmišljaju riječi. A ja mislim kako je to glupo. Na primjer, ljudi vam stalno govore: "Budi kreativan, komponiraj novu glazbu, bavi se umjetnošću, znanošću i tehnologijom." Ali kada je riječ o riječima, kažu: "Nemoj! Ne. Kreativnost ovdje prestaje. Prestani s tim." (Smijeh) Ako pitate mene, to nema smisla. Riječi su sjajne. Trebali bismo ih imati više. Želim da smislite što je moguće više novih riječi. I reći ću vam šest načina za stvaranje novih riječi u engleskom.
The first way is the simplest way. Basically, steal them from other languages. ["Go rob other people"] (Laughter) Linguists call this borrowing, but we never give the words back , so I'm just going to be honest and call it stealing. We usually take words for things that we like, like delicious food. We took "kumquat" from Chinese, we took "caramel" from French. We also take words for cool things like "ninja," right? We took that from Japanese, which is kind of a cool trick because ninjas are hard to steal from. (Laughter)
Prvi je najjednostavniji. Jednostavno ih ukradite iz drugih jezika. [Kradite od drugih ljudi] (Smijeh) Lingvisti to nazivaju posuđivanjem, ali mi nikada ne vraćamo riječi, tako da ću biti iskrena i nazvati to krađom. Obično uzimamo riječi za stvari koje volimo, kao na primjer, ukusnu hranu. Uzeli smo 'kumkvat' iz kineskog, uzeli smo 'karamel' iz francuskog. Jednako tako uzimamo riječi za fora stvari, poput 'nindža', zar ne? To smo uzeli iz japanskog, što je dobra fora jer je od nindža teško bilo što ukrasti. (Smijeh)
So another way that you can make words in English is by squishing two other English words together. This is called compounding. Words in English are like Lego: If you use enough force, you can put any two of them together. (Laughter) We do this all the time in English: Words like "heartbroken," "bookworm," "sandcastle" all are compounds. So go ahead and make words like "duckface," just don't make duckface. (Laughter)
Drugi način za stvaranje novih riječi u engleskom jest spajanje dvije engleske riječi u jednu. To se zove slaganje. Riječi u engleskom su kao lego kocke: Ako primijenite dovoljno sile, možete spojiti bilo koje dvije. (Smijeh) To stalno radimo u engleskom: Riječi poput 'slomljenog srca', 'knjiškog moljca', 'dvorca od pijeska' su sve složenice. Zato slobodno pravite riječi kao što je 'duckface', samo ga ne pravite. (Smijeh)
Another way that you can make words in English is kind of like compounding, but instead you use so much force when you squish the words together that some parts fall off. So these are blend words, like "brunch" is a blend of "breakfast" and "lunch." "Motel" is a blend of "motor" and "hotel." Who here knew that "motel" was a blend word? Yeah, that word is so old in English that lots of people don't know that there are parts missing. "Edutainment" is a blend of "education" and "entertainment." And of course, "electrocute" is a blend of "electric" and "execute." (Laughter)
Sljedeći način za stvaranje riječi u engleskom, je sličan slaganju, ali ovdje primjenjujete toliku silu prilikom spajanja dvije riječi, da neki dijelovi otpadnu. To su pomiješane riječi, poput 'brunch' koja je mješavina od 'breakfast' i 'lunch'. 'Motel' koji je mješavina 'motor' i 'hotel'. Koliko vas je ovdje znalo da je 'motel' mješavina? Da, ta je riječ toliko stara u engleskom da mnogi ne znaju kako ima dijelova koji su izostavljeni. 'Edutainment' je mješavina od 'education' i 'entertainment'. I naravno, 'electrocute' je mješavina od 'electric' i 'execute'. (Smijeh)
You can also make words by changing how they operate. This is called functional shift. You take a word that acts as one part of speech, and you change it into another part of speech. Okay, who here knew that "friend" hasn't always been a verb? "Friend" used to be noun and then we verbed it. Almost any word in English can be verbed. You can also take adjectives and make them into nouns. "Commercial" used to be an adjective and now it's a noun. And of course, you can "green" things.
Također možete stvarati nove riječi mijenjajući način na koji funkcioniraju. To se zove funkcijska izmjena. Uzmete riječ koja funkcionira kao jedna vrsta riječi i promijenite je u drugu vrstu riječi. Dobro, koliko vas je znalo da 'friend' (sprijateljiti se) nije uvijek bio glagol? 'Friend' je bila imenica i onda smo je 'poglagoljili'. Skoro svaka riječ u engleskom može biti 'poglagoljena'. Jednako tako možete i pridjeve pretvoriti u imenice. 'Commercial' je bio pridjev, a sada je imenica. I naravno, možete 'zelenjeti' stvari.
Another way to make words in English is back-formation. You can take a word and you can kind of squish it down a little bit. So for example, in English we had the word "editor" before we had the word "edit." "Edit" was formed from "editor." Sometimes these back-formations sound a little silly: Bulldozers bulldoze, butlers butle and burglers burgle. (Laughter)
Sljedeći način za stvaranje novih riječi u engleskom je tvorba unazad. Možete uzeti riječ i malo skratiti. Na primjer, u engleskom smo imali riječ 'editor' prije riječi 'edit'. 'Edit' je stvoreno od 'editor'. Ponekad ova tvorba unazad zvuči luckasto: buldožeri buldožiraju, batleri batliraju, a provalnici provaljuju. (Smijeh)
Another way to make words in English is to take the first letters of something and squish them together. So National Aeronautics and Space Administration becomes NASA. And of course you can do this with anything, OMG!
Sljedeći način za stvaranje riječi na engleskom je uzeti početna slova nečega i spojiti ih. Tako 'National Aeronautics and Space Administration' postaje NASA. Ovo možete napraviti s bilo čime, OMG! (op. prev. akronim od Oh My God).
So it doesn't matter how silly the words are. They can be really good words of English. "Absquatulate" is a perfectly good word of English. "Mugwump" is a perfectly good word of English. So the words don't have have to sound normal, they can sound really silly.
Dakle, nema veze koliko su blesave te riječi. One mogu biti dobre engleske riječi. 'Absquatulate' je savršeno dobra engleska riječ. "Mugwump" je savršeno dobra engleska riječ. Dakle riječi ne moraju zvučati normalno, mogu zvučati i blesavo.
Why should you make words? You should make words because every word is a chance to express your idea and get your meaning across. And new words grab people's attention. They get people to focus on what you're saying and that gives you a better chance to get your meaning across. A lot of people on this stage today have said, "In the future, you can do this, you can help with this, you can help us explore, you can help us invent." You can make a new word right now. English has no age limit. Go ahead, start making words today, send them to me, and I will put them in my online dictionary, Wordnik. Thank you so much. (Applause)
Zašto bi trebali stvarati riječi? Morali biste stvarati riječi jer je svaka riječ prilika da objasnite svoju ideju i prenesete njezin smisao. A nove riječi privlače pažnju ljudi. Potiču ljude da se fokusiraju na ono što govorite i daju vam bolju priliku da objasnite smisao. Mnogo ljudi na ovoj bini danas je reklo: "U budućnosti možete napraviti to, možete nam pomoći s time, pomoći nam u istraživanju i pronalaženju." Možete osmisliti novu riječ sada. Engleski nema starosno ograničenje. Samo naprijed, počnite stvarati riječi danas, pošaljite mi ih, i ja ću ih staviti u svoj rječnik na Internetu, Wordnik. Hvala vam puno. (Pljesak)