# Fallacious word construction -- what's the term? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305 "2005-03-26T03:05:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/1 "2005-03-26T03:05:10Z")
Today I was trying to find the word that meant the opposite of ‘append’, as in “I appended the sentence XYZ to the end of the third paragraph on page 67.”. “Aha!” I said, “It’s the cool semi-obscure and geeky word ‘prepend’.” […] “Waitaminit. If it is, how come OED isn’t spitting up the right definition at all, and Word doesn’t recognize it? If it’s not, then what’s the real word?” Thesauruses online yielded no bounty. Finally I gave up and asked a local IRC channel what the answer was. “Prefix?” :smack: :smack: :smack: Which leads me to my real question – what do you call it when people make up words that sound like they SHOULD be right, but aren’t? I figured prepend was the right word because hey, Latin etymological roots. Revisionist grammarfascism? This is another term that I should know, and probably do, but can’t find in the jumble that passes for my brain these days. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/2 "2005-03-26T03:17:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Which leads me to my real question – what do you call it when people make up words that sound like they SHOULD be right, but aren’t? I figured prepend was the right word because hey, Latin etymological roots. Revisionist grammarfascism? This is another term that I should know, and probably do, but can’t find in the jumble that passes for my brain these days. Back formation? That tends to be used to describe the origins of words (“Port Out/Starboard Home”, “Fornication Under Consent of the king”) rather than words like “prepend”, buit it might fit. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/3 "2005-03-26T03:39:02Z")
[Prepend](http://dict.die.net/prepend/) Malcatenation; by extension of the word series [concatenate, discatenation, precatenation, surcatenation, subcatenation, decatenation.](http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:ePHH_ipQUJcJ:forum.wolframscience.com/archive/topic/649-1.html+discatenation&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) ---
**Author:** ![Josh\_dePlume](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Josh\_dePlume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Josh_dePlume)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/4 "2005-03-26T03:58:23Z")
> [@bashere](#): > > Back formation? That tends to be used to describe the origins of words (“Port Out/Starboard Home”, “Fornication Under Consent of the king”) rather than words like “prepend”, buit it might fit. Those aren’t back formations. They’re just false etymologies. They happen to both be false acronymic etymologies, but that has nothing to do with back formation. Back formation involves things like removal of a real or imagined suffix to create a word that didn’t exist before. ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/5 "2005-03-26T04:01:06Z")
> [@Josh\_dePlume](#): > > Those aren’t back formations. They’re just false etymologies. They happen to both be false acronymic etymologies, but that has nothing to do with back formation. Back formation involves things like removal of a real or imagined suffix to create a word that didn’t exist before. I slouch corrected. I seem to have misunderstood the definition of “back formation”, which isn’t all that surprising. Out of curiousity, can you give an example of a back formation? I’m having problems thinking of a word that fits that definition. ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/6 "2005-03-26T04:05:06Z")
Ah, as “burgle” from burglar. Teach me not to check with a dictionary before posting. Never mind, my examples aren’t back formations. ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/7 "2005-03-26T04:25:14Z")
> [@Josh\_dePlume](#): > > Those aren’t back formations. They’re just false etymologies. They happen to both be false acronymic etymologies, but that has nothing to do with back formation. Back formation involves things like removal of a real or imagined suffix to create a word that didn’t exist before. Back formation sounds like the term that I was looking for, except with a prefix in this particular case, not a suffix. **Squink** – well, slap me and call me Sally. 😃 I’ve heard it used so often around me that I was wondering what was going on when more reputable resources were refusing to acknowledge my understanding of the term. The Jargon File is The Answer! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/8 "2005-03-26T20:42:39Z")
Another back-formation is the verb “lase”. “Laser” is an acronym, being “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”. But most words in English which end in -er are formed from a verb, so it’s easy to suppose that a laser is a thing which lases. So we get the verb “to lase”, meaning “to do what a laser does”. ---
**Author:** ![wampeter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@wampeter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wampeter)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/9 "2005-03-26T21:02:39Z")
I think it can be considered a form of analogy (back formation is also analogy). Analogy (in linguistic terms, at least) is the use of phonological or morphological forms on the basis of their similarities to other existing forms. My favorite is the plural of _octopus_ , a Greek borrowing, whose plural form should be something like _octopodes_ , but through analogy to other words ending in -us, borrowed from Latin, we get _octopi_ . Or the other accepted plural form of _octopuses_ , of course, is through analogy to the most common English plural morpheme. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/10 "2005-03-26T21:38:25Z")
> [@bashere](#): > > Out of curiousity, can you give an example of a back formation? There was this vegetable commonly known as **pease.** A plateful of these small green things would be called **pease.** Even a single one would be called **pease.** However, people thought that the singular of **pease** would be **pea.** And then the plural of **pea** became **peas.** > **[Definition of pea | Dictionary.com](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pea)** > > Definition of pea from Dictionary.com, the world’s leading online source for English definitions, pronunciations, word origins, idioms, Word of the Day, and more. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/11 "2005-03-26T22:18:59Z")
You can coin new words. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/12 "2005-03-27T04:26:36Z")
Wait… we are taking bets on who can in effect construct the BEST fallacious word… for Fallacious word construction? …DEEP… ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/13 "2005-03-27T05:38:42Z")
> [@Snooooopy](#): > > You can coin new words. And I think that’s what happened with prepend. It’s now a valid word in my view, meaning I know what it means and I have no problems using it in my own work. I’m apparently far from the only one to feel this way. If the OED and the AHD haven’t caught up yet, tough noogies. 😉 > [@Peter Morris](#): > > There was this vegetable commonly known as pease. A term neatly fossilized in the old poem “Pease porridge hot/Pease porridge cold/Pease porridge in the pot nine days old.” > [@wampeter](#): > > My favorite is the plural of octopus, a Greek borrowing, whose plural form should be something like octopodes, but through analogy to other words ending in -us, borrowed from Latin, we get octopi. That’s interesting, and octopodes is a cool word. > [@Chronos](#): > > Another back-formation is the verb “lase”. And the verb “[mase](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mase)” from maser, which comes from ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. [Apparently a live usage in a technical/scientific context.](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1994ApJ...429..253G&db_key=AST) [Another](http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/CASCA/w94/jcmt.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallacious-word-construction-whats-the-term/296305/14 "2005-03-27T05:42:56Z")
I thought the term was “neologism”, as in making up a new word when you can’t think of another one.