Saturday, June 17, 2023

The language goes round and round

...and it comes out here at rhymeswithplague blog, where today we take a look at the wonderful world of prefixes and the many possible expansions thereto, depending on what you are prefixing:

  • form -- con-, de-, in-, per-, re-, trans, uni-.
  • firm -- af-, con-, in-.
  • ply -- ap-, com-, im-, multi-, re-, sup-.
  • found -- con-, pro-.
  • fuse -- con-, de-, ef-, in-, pro-, re-, suf-, trans-.
  • phony -- caco-, sym-, tele-, anti-, poly-.
  • tate -- agi-, anno-, dic-, es-, hesi-, intes-, lac-, mu-, poten-, resusci-, ro-.
  • nate -- abomi-, bicarbo-, carbo-, concate-, desig-, deto-, domi-, elimi-, fortu-, germi-, halluci-, illumi-, impreg-, into-, nomi-, predomi-, reso-, termi-, unfortu-, uri-, vacci-.
  • late -- accumu-, ambu-, assimi-, choco-, discombobu-, emu-, extrapo-, formu-, gesticu-, immo-, invio-, muti-, ob-, oscil-, perambu-, perco-, popu-, regu-, simu-, titil-, vio-.
  • gate -- fumi-, insti-, investi-, miti-, navi-, obli-, propa-, surro-.
  • cate -- abdi-, adjudi-, bifur-, defe-, desic-, forni-, indi-, lubri-, medi-, predi-, repli-, suppli-, va-.
  • motion -- com-, de-, e-, loco-, pro-.
  • position -- ap-, com-, de-, decom-, im-, op-, pro-, re-, sup-, trans-.
  • astic -- bomb-, chili-, dr-, el-, fant-, mon-, orgi-, pl-, schol-.
  • gestion -- con-, decon-, di-, indi-, sug-.
  • bra -- alge-, penum-, um-, verte-, ze-.

Well, that's enough for now. Your head will stop swimming eventually. You may even want to try playing this game yourself.

This post has been done in a spirit of fun, rather tongue-in-cheek, but my old English teacher, Mr. D.P. Morris, is probably spinning in his grave at my audacity.

6 comments:

  1. My personal game is to take the letters of a name or short phrase to see how many words I can make from them. I have to form--trans- often and sometimes I tate--hesi- while I late--formu- all the possibilities.

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    1. Emma, please excuse my delay in replying. I have been playing your game using the phrase MERRY CHRISTMAS.and so far I have foundd 381 plus a couple of naughty words, and I'm still playing.. The fact that the letter 's' appears two times makes a lot of plurals possible. Perhaps I will publish my list in a future post.

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    2. OOh I will get to work on it right away.

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    3. Emma, I have slowed down but my MERRY CHRISTMAS list has passed 430. I am planning to make a post about it shortly. Stay tuned.

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  2. Interesting. It occurred to me that I didn't ever recall seeing a Dictionary of Affixes nor, for that matter, a Dictionary of either suffixes or prefixes. So I Googled it and there is at least one of Affixes and doubtless more of either one. I have to say that I have not given enough thought in my life to Affixes and may remedy that. Well at least add it to my "List of Things To Do Whilst I'm Still Able".

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    Replies
    1. Graham, once I started this post it was difficult to stop. I know some of my 'prefixes' are a little far-fetched but it was great fun.

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