#backformation

“Don’t cliff jump!”

as in “the woman drew her gun but didn’t trig”

Visiting AO3 today I noticed that something I had written had gained one more...kudo? kudos? Neither of these sounds right!

I know that the word kudos is borrowed from Greek and generally used in English as a mass noun, so originally you would never speak of 'one kudo(s)' any more than you would say 'I got one praise'.

But that was then. The fact now is that AO3 counts kudos, and as such strongly encourages users to treat it as a count noun. But backforming a singular 'kudo' still sounds a bit off to me. Or is that perfectly acceptable now? Which of these is better:

'My unpopular story gained one more kudo today.'

'My unpopular story gained one more kudos today.''

In each of the instances below a new word is needed. Fill in the blank by creating a word (i.e. a form that currently does not exist in standard English) using the indicated word formation process.

a) Use an acronym for the Tertiary Warp Induction for Driving Instructors course:  “My housemate just got his __TWIDI_____ certification.”

 b) Use derivation an action that is no longer pointless: “Going on the internet is usually pointless, but researching linguistics online is actually really ________.”

c) Use compounding for a person who searches for missing socks: “I need to hire a ________ after doing the washing last night!”

 d) Use blending for the new broccoli and orange flavoured sorbet: “The delicious new     broange (?)    sorbet is selling like hotcakes!.”

 e) Use backformation for doing something out in the open, (not incognito): “He thought he was being discrete, but his surprise plans were pretty ________.”

Colleague: ARGH Me: You ok there? Colleague: This document I'm reading uses the word "mentee". I HATE the word "mentee" Me: Oh c'mon, you can't hate words. Words are great. But it is a weird word, yeah. Colleague: It's made up! "Mentor" comes from a name in mythology! You can't just make "mentee" from it! Me: Ah, backformation, that old chestnut. Roll with it, homie. Colleague: *fumes* Me: I think it's funny, it looks like "manatee" *looks up pictures of manatees on the internet* Indeed, "mentee" is an excellent example of backformation, the process whereby a new word is derived by removing/adding actual or supposed affixes, in this case swapping the "or" suffix for "ee".

In the case of Mentor, the "or" wasn't originally a suffix like we see in "director" or "leaser", meaning 'the one who does something'.

As my esteemed colleague correctly pointed out to me, Mentor was a figure in Greek mythology, who was then the namesake of a character in a modern book (1699) called Les Aventures de Telemaque, by the French writer François Fénelon (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentor). This book is thought to have influenced the current general usage of "mentor", meaning a trusted friend, counsellor or teacher, usually a more experienced person.

Because "mentor" has moved into general usage as a noun from its original proper noun status, we have started to deconstruct it and derive new words from it. This is the beauty of language - we can get very creative and productive, and make new words to express what we require.

In this case, we need a succinct label for the "person-who-receives-mentoring", and "mentee" fits the bill pretty well. Most people would be able to easily derive its meaning, due to the other examples of this "ee" suffix in general use like "employer/employee".