#rebracketing

Rebracketing is when a compound word or portmanteau (words made up of two other words or affixes) is "rearranged" so that different affixes are made from the original ones.

For example, the word "hamburger" was not made from combining the words "ham" and "burger". Rather, it was made by combining the word "Hamburg" (as in the city in Germany) with the suffix "-er" (meaning "of" or "from"). However, "hamburger" was rebracketed from [hamburg][er] to [ham][burger]. So, when we build new words from "hamburger", we use the brackets "ham" and "burger", not the brackets "hamburg" and "er". Thus, we use "cheeseburger", "fish burger", "veggie burger", etc. We don't use "cheeser", "fisher", "veggier", etc.

Another good example of rebracketing is "helicopter". It was originally made by combining the word "helico" (meaning "spiral") and "pter" (meaning "wing" or "feather", as in "pterodactyl"). But, over time, it was rebracketed from [helico][pter] to [heli][copter], resulting in words like "helipad" and "gyrocopter", not "helicopad" and "gyropter".

One more, and my personal favorite, is "alcoholic". It comes from the word "alcohol" and the suffix "-ic" (meaning "of" or "pertaining to"). Over time, though, this was rebracketed from [alcohol][ic] to [alc][oholic]. This results in words like "workaholic", "chocoholic", and "shopaholic", not "workic", "chockic", and "shoppic". One joke you might see a lot in linguistic circles is "What's a workaholic addicted to? Workahol!"

n.