Neologisms

Abstract

THERE remains but one point to notice in reference to the hybrid (or monster) prolificness. Dr. Latham pretty well exhausts its etymological bearings. There remains its phonological bearings to consider. No new word has a chance of being naturalised unless it can be pronounced as well as written; and the greater the difficulty of pronunciation the less is that chance. Now, in order to render Mr. Wallace's word acceptable, it must be pronounced as if it were Written, prollyfickness, in which phonetic form we almost lose the parent adjective. The reason of this is, that the syllables ic and ness will not inosculate. To use Mr. Sylvester's phraseology, there is not a perfect anastomosis, and this imperfection is remediable only by change of accent, viz., passing on the accent from lif to ic; otherwise we must sacrifice anastomosis, and write the word as a compound, prolificness, i.e., with a hyphen to indicate the necessity of a pause in that place. Surely on all accounts prolificence is by far the better word.