Borrowing: it is the taking over of words from other languages. English has borrowed a vast number of words from different languages including ‘croissant’ (French), sofa(Arabic), ‘yogurt’ (Turkish). Other languages borrow words from English, too. For example, ‘le stress’ (French), and the Japanese ‘taipuraitaa’ (typewriter). Loan translation or calque is a special type of borrowing. In this process, there is direct translation of the elements of the word into the borrowing language. Famous examples are ‘gratte-ciel’, which literally translates as ‘sky-scraper’. Nowadays, Spanish people eat ‘perroscalientes’ (hot dogs). Compounding: another facet of word formation is the process of combining two words, technically known as compounding. This process is famous in English and German, but much less common in French and Spanish. Bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint, etc. are famous examples in English. Blending: the combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term is also present in the process called blending. However, blending is typically accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word, and joining it to the end of the other word. Smoke and fog are turned into ‘smog’. ‘brunch’ is made up of breakfast and lunch. Clipping: clipping displays the element of reduction more than blending. It occurs when a multi-syllabic word is reduced into a mono-syllabic one, e.g. facsimile becomes fax;fanatic is turned into fan; cabriolet is clipped into cab. Australian and British English prefer a specific type of reduction that is labelled as ‘hypocorisms.’ In this process, a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then -y or –ie is added to the end. Therefore, television gives telly, and Australian becomes Aussie. Breakfast is brekky, and handkerchief becomes hankie.
