{"id":25296,"date":"2018-07-19T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.journals.cambridge.org\/?p=25296"},"modified":"2018-08-07T13:47:49","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T12:47:49","slug":"what-are-the-linguistic-consequences-of-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2018\/07\/19\/what-are-the-linguistic-consequences-of-brexit\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the linguistic consequences of Brexit?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Blog post written by\u00a0Gordana Lalic-Krstin and Nadezda Silaski, authors of the article ‘From Brexit to Bregret: An account of some Brexit-induced neologisms in English’<\/a> recently published in English Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Judging by the material we collected from news media (broadcast and online), Facebook and Twitter, blogs and internet forums, the event \u00a0has generated a myriad of neologisms in English, using Brexit<\/em> as a model or as a source word.<\/p>\n

Brexit \u00a0<\/em>was modelled after Grexit<\/em>, a word coined to denote the possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone, giving rise to at least two more similarly coined blends, Spexit<\/em> and Itexit<\/em>, referring to the prospect of the same event in Spain and Italy. However, this was just a beginning of a true explosion of Brexit-related neologisms (or would that be Brexplosion<\/em> \/ Brinvasion <\/em>of Brexicon<\/em>), many of which feature ludicity and humour. As the UK referendum approached and the media coverage intensified, building up suspense, new words proliferated in a matter of days to name hypothetical scenarios in other EU countries (e.g. Auxit<\/em> [Austria + exit], Bexit<\/em> [Belgium + exit], Chexit<\/em>\/Czechit<\/em> [Czech + exit], Fixit<\/em> [Finland + exit], Irelexit<\/em> \/ Irexit [Ireland + exit], etc. For a while it seemed that there was a real craze on the internet as to who would come up with the most imaginative word. Very soon the morphological pattern was generalized and the meaning extended from that of \u2018Britain leaving the EU\u2019 to that of \u2018any country leaving a political union\u2019, as evidenced by Calexit [California + exit] \u2018California leaving the US\u2019, Texit [Texas + exit] \u2018Texas leaving the US\u2019 and Scexit\/<\/em>Scoxit [Scotland + exit] \u2018Scotland leaving the UK\u2019.<\/p>\n

From the point of view of its word-formation, Brexit<\/em> can be interpreted as having been coined from either Britain<\/em> + exit <\/em>or from British <\/em>+ exit<\/em>, the latter interpretation being more prevalent. Similarly, with quite a few newly formed blends, it is equally unclear whether the first source word is Britain<\/em>, British <\/em>or Brexit<\/em>, as for instance in breferendum<\/em>, Brexpats<\/em> or (point of no) Breturn<\/em>. Clear cases include suffixations such as brexiter<\/em>, brexiteer \u00a0<\/em>or Brexitesque<\/em> and neoclassical compounds Brexitography<\/em>, Brexitology<\/em> \u00a0or Brexitophobia<\/em>. Blending proved to be one of the most productive mechnisms as in, for example, Borexit<\/em><Boris + exit, bracceptance<\/em><Brexit + acceptance, Braccident<\/em><Brexit + accident, Branalysis<\/em><Brexit + analysis, branger<\/em><Brexit + anger, brargaining<\/em><Brexit + bargaining, bredictable<\/em><Brexit + predictable, Bre-do<\/em><Brexit + redo, breferendum<\/em><Brexit + referendum, bregret<\/em><Brexit + regret, brenial<\/em><Brexit + denial, Brepeat<\/em><Brexit + repeat, brepression<\/em><Brexit + depression, bresults<\/em><Brexit + results, etc. \u00a0Blends coined with source words other than Brexit<\/em> include: Brentry<\/em> [Britain\/British + entry], the word coined retrospectively by analogy with Brexit <\/em>\u00a0to denote the entry of the UK into the European Economic Community in 1973; beleave <\/em>[believe + leave], a slogan urging people to believe in the leave vote; EUge (mistake)<\/em> [EU + huge], used by those opposed to Brexit to describe the EU referendum results; Eurhope<\/em> [Europe + hope], Eunity <\/em>[EU + unity] and Euthanasia <\/em>[EU + euthanasia], all three seen on placards on pro-EU demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Other word-formation processes have proved far less frequent: a number of neoclassical compounds have been recorded (Brexitography<\/em>, Brexitometer<\/em>, Brexitology<\/em> and Brexitophobia<\/em>), three nouns have been turned into verbs through conversion (bregret<\/em>, brexit<\/em> and regrexit<\/em>). The verb brexit <\/em>has been used in a clipped form brex<\/em>, as in \u2018Don\u2019t go brexin\u2019 my heart\u2019, a play on a popular song. Bregret<\/em>, brexit<\/em> and bremain<\/em> have so far been used as bases for suffixations: bregret<\/em>>bregretter<\/em>; brexit<\/em>>brexiter, brexiteer, Brexitesque<\/em>; bremain<\/em>>bremainer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some of these words are clearly here to stay whereas others will surely be soon forgotten, failing to make a lasting contribution to the English word stock. And while predicting their failure or success can be a challenging and insightful linguistic endeavour, one thing is for sure: the word Brexit<\/em> has already made an impact on the English lexicon and more related neologisms may be expected as new political and economic developments surrounding the process of Britain\u2019s exiting the EU continue to unfold.<\/p>\n

Read the full article ‘From Brexit to Bregret: An account of some Brexit-induced neologisms in English<\/a>‘ published in English Today<\/em> here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog post written by\u00a0Gordana Lalic-Krstin and Nadezda Silaski, authors of the article ‘From Brexit to Bregret: An account of some Brexit-induced neologisms in English’ recently published in English Today. Judging by the material we collected from news media (broadcast and online), Facebook and Twitter, blogs and internet forums, the event \u00a0has generated a myriad of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":779,"featured_media":25299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4725,4769],"class_list":["post-25296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-social-sciences"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/779"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25296"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=25296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}