The following post is by MYRLN, a non-blogger who is Kalilily Time’s guest writer every Monday
WORD SURGERY
In curious ways, words contain surprises we don’t always (if ever) notice — some of them can break down into two or more words having no relationship to the original word’s meaning. In the previous sentence, for example, the word “relationship” can be broken into two words: “relation” and “ship”. But words with certain suffixes, like “-ship” or “-ion” or “-tic”, “-ant”, and “-able” make
finding breakable words easier and thus a little less fun in the finding. But sometimes they’re fun, too, especially when finding the more difficult kind becomes frustrating.
Indeed, the same applies to many words sharing particular prefixes like “in-” (as in “in-deed”, “in-tent”) or “be-” (as in “be-have”, “be-rate”). Also less fun and too easy to identify are those long-ago manufactured compounds, like “fare-well” or “eye-sight.” But again, they can be fun to recognize, too.
The real gems, however, are those words that have none of the above characteristics and at first glance might be unrecognizable. They’re the ones that break down into fun, surprising, and often funny new words with no connection to or sometimes totally opposite in meaning or sense from the original. Sometimes one comes along that requires a surprising piece of punctuation, say an apostrophe, to make the split work. So have some fun, find the kind of words in your life that break into new words.
Below is a list to demonstrate some oddities of our words (including, as examples, a few with the kinds of prefixes, suffixes, and compounds mentioned above): understand… information… basically… cinematic… imaging (apostrophe required)… advice…supervisor… outage… season…mattresses… archbishop… miserable… realtor… forgotten (2 or 3 new words there)… tomcruise (:-))… protestant… manhattan… belong… designate lobby… candidate… cowardice… support… forage.
But one of the best of all: therapist.
Have fun.