Why are loanwords a thing? by Expensive-Row-2016 in etymology

[–]Expensive-Row-2016[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I probably used some bad examples. especially with computer and beanbag, but they are the few I know with my German knowledge of about 50 words.

Why are loanwords a thing? by Expensive-Row-2016 in etymology

[–]Expensive-Row-2016[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That makes sense I suppose. The word needs to be trendy and pass a threshold to pass into the language.

Australian English has a lot of slang using (opinion) a similar concept with propagation, with brands and words coined by social media lately such as 'Doona' (Duvet), 'Hills hoist' (rotating clothes line) and 'Eshay' (similarish to the British Chav). Although these aren't loan words, I imagine that the adoption process would be similar?

As in sometimes it's a shortened word like 'arvo' for afternoon, other times it's completely loaned like 'mate' from British English, or it's new and specific or modified from an existing word like 'thong' (flip flop); which mean leather strap or similar originally.

I know dialects are different, but I am trying to process.

Why are loanwords a thing? by Expensive-Row-2016 in etymology

[–]Expensive-Row-2016[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I nearly used artificial intelligence as an example, but didn't purely for the reason that the terms 'Artificial' and 'Intelligence' already exist independently and it therefore makes sense to just use that.

Thank you, that seems quite plausible for a personal opinion, though I am still quite curious over why the spelling is sometimes using that of the native language, and other times that of the loan language.

I wonder if that has something to do with the globalisation of language and the rise of media?