neologisms

As I am reviewing Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th Ed.) for my upcoming spelling bees, I try to "cover" a chunk of pages, usually about 15, at a time. I make lists of words I do not know and then get lost in words I usually know but want to investigate further. For example, on page 821-838, which I studied today, I listed such words as mynheer, myrmecophile, nacelle, nainsook, naled, nappa, naprapathy, nates, nautch, nawab, neem, netiquette, neume, nictitate and nilgae. In fact, I knew some of the terms, such as nictitate (to wink) or myrmecophile (lover of something to do with ants), but I put them on my list because I would like to have them as a part of my working vocabulary. But, as luck would have it, I became entranced with the definitions of neologism on p. 831 and simply had to stop and follow the thread.

Oh, the first defintion is what we all know the word to mean: "a new word, usage, or expression," but it is the second definition that sent me to the OED. The second definition is: "a meaningless word coined by a psychotic." Doesn't that invite closer scrutiny? By having these two definitions confront you so starkly, with no further explanation or examples, you really wonder if the dictionary doesn't sometime create more confusion than it removes. Just think if you were a person who didn't know English, and you heard someone in polite conversation use the word "neologism." You might scurry to the Collegiate and breathlessly look it up. Mightn't you immediately wonder about the mental health of the person either using the word neologism or the person who whom that person was referring? Well, that is what happens when you take books too seriously in life; you offten end up with greater confusion.

The OED on Neologism

The English term neologism was, despite its name, not new when it was coined in 1799. French, Italian and German had their respective terms, which were invented in the previous 65 years. Its first attestation in English is in 1799: "Neither defying by bold neologisms, nor offending by tasteless obsoletisms." I am afraid to say that the later term has, well, become obsolete, while neologism is strong and supple. In addition to the standard definition (new word or coining a new word), the OED lists a psychiatric and theological definition. The theological usage of neologism is older than the psychiatric, going back to 1827: "Neologism, a system which is not confined to Germany, has been zealously fostered in other countries." The reason the word emerged in theology at this time is that German learning was just starting to penetrate English-speaking cultures and the most controversial of that learning was in the area of biblical higher criticism. Emerging out of Pentateuchal source criticism in the 18th century, German biblical criticism had, by 1835, questioned the historicity of many of the stories of Jesus and the necessity of various long-held doctrines of Christian orthodoxy. Thus, the English-speaking religious world was both afraid of, but seemingly charmed by, German learning and, as the century wore on the German 'higher criticsm' began to flow into this country and England. By the time I did my doctoral work in Early Christianity in the 1970s, almost all the chairs in New Testament studies at major Eastern Universities were held by Germans or Americans who had deeply imbibed the German critical spirit. I, indeed, won a Deutscher akademischer Austauschdienst fellowship for study at Tuebingen, (West) Germany in 1980--so that I, too, could drink this elixir.

But, the OED says that this definition of neologism is now "rare." Why? Because German learning so washed over our shores that it couldn't be labeled "new" anymore. It became "ours." Yet, in the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s, as Protestant Evangelicalism flourished in America and as American biblical scholarship matured, we became less and less dependent on German models of scholarship and more able to develop an "American" biblical scholarship. This scholarship focuses less on the prehistory of the texts we now have (the so-called "form criticism" of the Germans) and more on the final form of the text that confronts the reader.

All of this wasn't really necessary to know, but aren't you glad you now know it?

Returning to the OED on Neologism

So, the psychiatric use of the term was coined only in 1905 (because the field didn't develop until the 19th century in, where else(?), Germany): "Neologisms the meaning of which may remain absolutely enigmatical to the patient himself." Or, also from 1905: "Neologisms are frequent in the period of dementia." Hm. What does that say about our culture, which invents gobs of words each year? A decade ago we barely had the term "email" and words connected with "cyber" were nearly non-existent. Jung, in his Collected Works speaks of "Word-formations, which are so bizarre that they immediately bring to mind the neologisms of dementia praecox."

But even though I was first drawn to the OED definition because of the second definition of neologism in the Collegiate, I want to return, in the next essay, to the first definition. Join me.

1786