What Bridezillas Can Tell Us About English
Briefly

from Psychology Today5 months ago
Speakers of English are adept at creating new terms by stringing together parts of other words... If the resulting construction is useful... then the new term may catch on more broadly.
Psychology Todayhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/small-talk-and-big-questions/202409/what-bridezillas-can-tell-us-about-english
Consider bridezilla. This term for a soon-to-be-married woman behaving badly... first appearing in a 1995 Boston Globe article entitled "Tacky Trips Down the Aisle." Its rise... was undoubtedly assisted by the WE TV series Bridezillas.
Psychology Todayhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/small-talk-and-big-questions/202409/what-bridezillas-can-tell-us-about-english
-zilla, of course, is the back half of Godzilla... its name may derive from a combination of the Japanese words for 'gorilla' (gorira) and 'whale' (kujira)... The result-Gujira-was homogenized into 'Godzilla'.
Psychology Todayhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/small-talk-and-big-questions/202409/what-bridezillas-can-tell-us-about-english
But how has -zilla fared as a productive suffix in English? It was... pressed into service for the name of a web browser... combining 'Mosaic' with -zilla, giving us Mozilla.
Psychology Todayhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/small-talk-and-big-questions/202409/what-bridezillas-can-tell-us-about-english
Read at Psychology Today
#language #word-formation #suffixes #cultural-terms #linguistics
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