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 leksikograf. Ja pravim rečnike. Moj posao kao leksikografa je da pokušam da stavim sve moguće reči u rečnik. Moj posao nije da odlučim šta je reč; 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.
Svi koji govore engleski odlučuju zajedno šta je reč, a šta nije. Svaki jezik je samo grupa ljudi koja se dogovara o međusobnom sporazumevanju. Ponekad, kad ljudi pokušavaju da odluče da li je neka reč dobra ili loša, nemaju baš dobar razlog. Pa kažu nešto kao: "Zbog gramatike!" (Smeh) Ja ne marim baš mnogo za gramatiku - nemojte nikome da kažete.
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, reč "gramatika" - u stvari, postoje dve vrste gramatike. Postoji gramatika koja živi u vašem umu i ako ste izvorni govornik jezika ili dobar govornik jezika, to su nesvesna pravila koja sledite kada govorite taj jezik. To je ono što naučite kada učite jezik kao dete. I evo primera: Ovo je Vag. Vag. A evo i još jednog. Ima ih dva. Ima dva... Publika: Vaga. Erin MekKin: Tačno! Znate kako da napravite množinu od "vag". To pravilo živi u vašem umu. Nikada nisu morali da vas uče tom pravilu, prosto ga znate. Ovo je eksperiment koji je smislio profesor na Bostonskom univerzitetu Džin Berko Glison 1958. godine. Pričamo o 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 vašem umu nisu kao saobraćajni zakoni, već više kao zakoni prirode. A niko ne treba da vas podseća da poštujete prirodni zakon, zar ne? Kad izađete ujutru, vaša mama ne kaže: "Hej, dušo, mislim da će biti hladno, uzmi jaknu, ne zaboravi da poštuješ zakon gravitacije." Niko to ne govori. Postoje druga pravila koja su više u vezi načina, nego u vezi prirode. Možete zamisliti reč kao što je "šešir". Kad naučite kako funkcioniše šešir, niko ne treba da vam kaže: "Ne nosi šešir na nogama." Ono što treba da vam kažu je: "Da li šeširi mogu da se nose unutra? Ko 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 da bi obeshrabrili ljude da izmišljaju reči. Ja mislim da je to glupo. Na primer, ljudi vam stalno govore: "Budi kreativan, komponuj muziku, bavi se umetnošću, naukom i tehnologijom." Ali kad su u pitanju reči, kažu: "Nemoj! Ne. Kreativnost ovde prestaje. Prestani s tim." (Smeh) Po meni, to nema smisla. Reči su sjajne. Treba da ih imamo više. Želim da smislite što je moguće više novih reči. I reći ću vam šest načina za pravljenje novih reči 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 način je najjednostavniji. Prosto ih ukradite iz drugih jezika. [Kradite od drugih ljudi] (Smeh) Lingvisti ovo zovu pozajmljivanje, ali nikad ne vraćamo reči, pa ću biti iskrena i nazvati to krađom. Obično uzimamo reči za stvari koje volimo, kao na primer, ukusnu hranu. Uzeli smo "kumkvat" iz kineskog, "karamel" iz francuskog. Takođe uzimamo reči za kul stvari kao što je "nindža". To smo uzeli iz japanskog, što je dobar trik, jer je od nindži teško ukrasti bilo šta. (Smeh)
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 pravljenje novih reči u engleskom je spajanje dve engleske reči u jednu. To se zove slaganje. Reči u engleskom su kao lego kocke: Ako primenite dovoljno sile, možete spojiti bilo koje dve. (Smeh) Ovo radimo stalno u engleskom: Reči kao što su "slomljeno srce", "knjiški moljac", "pesak-kula" su složenice. Zato slobodno pravite reči kao što je "patkasto lice". (Smeh)
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)
Sledeći način za pravljenje reči u engleskom je sličan slaganju, samo što primenjujete toliku silu prilikom spajanja dve reči, da neki delovi otpadnu. To su slivene reči. "Branč" (brunch) je slivenica od "brekfast" (breakfast) i "lanč" (lunch). "Motel" je slivenica od "motor" i "hotel". Ko je od vas znao da je "motel" slivenica? Da, ova reč je toliko stara da mnogi ne znaju da ima delova koji su izostavljeni. "Zadukacija" je slivenica od "zabava" i "edukacija". I naravno, "stržiti" je sliveno od "struja" i "spržiti" (Smeh)
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.
Takođe možete praviti nove reči promenom njihove funkcije. To se zove konverzija. Uzmete reč koja funkcioniše kao jedna vrsta reči i promenite je u drugu vrstu reči. Ko je od vas znao da "friend" (sprijateljiti se) nije uvek bio glagol? "Friend" je bila imenica i onda smo je verbalizovali. Skoro svaka reč u engleskom može biti verbalizovana. Isto tako možete i prideve pretvoriti u imenice. "Commercial" je bio pridev, a sada je imenica. I naravno, možete "zeleneti" nešto.
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)
Sledeći način za pravljenje novih reči u engleskom je tvorba unazad. Možete da uzmete reč i malo je skratite. Na primer, u engleskom smo imali reč "editor" pre nego reč "edit". "Edit" je napravljeno od "editor". Ponekad ova tvorba unazad zvuči pomalo smešno: Buldožeri buldožiraju, batleri batluju, a provalnici provaljuju. (Smeh)
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!
Sledeći način za pravljenje reči u engleskom je da uzmete početna slova nečega i spojite ih. Tako "National Aeronautics and Space Administration" postaje NASA. Ovo možete da uradite sa bilo čim, OMG!
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.
Nema veze koliko su blesave reči. One mogu biti dobre engleske reči. "Absquatulate" je savršeno dobra engleska reč. "Mugwump" je savršeno dobra engleska reč. Reči ne moraju da zvuče normalno, mogu zvučati 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 trebalo da pravite reči? Zato što je svaka reč mogućnost da izrazite vašu ideju i prenesete smisao, i nove reči privlače pažnju ljudi. Teraju ljude da se fokusiraju na ono što govorite i daju vam bolje šanse da prenesete smisao. Mnogo ljudi na ovoj bini danas je reklo: "U budućnosti možete da uradite to i to, možete da pomognete u istraživanju i pronalaženju." Možete da napravite novu reč odmah. Engleski nema starosnu granicu. Samo napred, počnite da pravite reči danas, pošaljite mi ih, i ja ću ih staviti u svoj rečnik na internetu, Wordnik. Hvala vam mnogo. (Aplauz)