Monday, 1 April 2024 ------------------------ Hello. All is Well. A correction, yesterday's writing was for chapter four, whoops. Today, in chapter five, we learn about word formation. How words come to be. In linguistics, neologism is a new word. A word we collectively recognize and use. Not that the word neologism is a new word, but that it's a word for a new word, haha. Etymology is the study of a word's origins and history. The book goes through eight typical ways words come to be. The first is borrowing. This is taking a word directly from another language. For example, piano (Italian), pretzel (German), tornado (Spanish). The second is loan-translation, or calque. It's the same as borrowing except literally translating the word, for example Wolkenkratzer (German) is a calque of skyscraper. The third is combining, simply putting words together, like nouns (fingerprint), adjectives (good-looking), or both (fast-food). The fourth is blending. Here we turn the start of word and the end of another word into a new word, such as "smoke and fog" to 'smog', "binary and digit" to 'bit', or "breakfast and lunch" to 'brunch'. The fifth is clipping, where we reduce a word with many syllables into a one-syllable word, like 'advertisement' to 'ad', 'influenza' to 'flu', or "public house" to 'pub' This usually originates from casual speech for efficiency. I guess a recent example could be 'rizz', while it primarily refers to one's ability to attract or seduce romantically (at least my understanding), it's short for 'charisma'. I'm writing on my phone today, and it doesn't recognize rizz. Maybe that'll change someday? The older you are, the more likely you'll scoff at that. Why is that? I guess change is scary, as it introduces loss of control and certainty. When you're younger, your brain is more actively developing your perception. This has been seen throughout history as people found dismay of new words such as aviation. It's also fun to think of how words change meaning, like gay. Continuing under clipping, there's hypocorisms and backfirmations. Hypocorisms are words with one syllable and a '-y' or '-ie' suffix. For example "moving pictures" to 'movie', "television" to 'telly', or "toasted sandwich" to 'toastie'. They're more common in British and Australian English. I wonder if this how I ended up with 'lambsy' as my online pseudonym. Originally, I used the word 'lambsauce', but 4-5 years ago I switched to 'lambsy'. It may have happened by people calling me that, and I slowly adopted it myself. I would most commonly be called lamb, but that was too generic to use as a username on websites. Anyhow, backformation is when you turn a noun into a verb by reducing the word, like 'mixture' to 'mix', or 'option' to 'opt'. The sixth is conversion. This is like backformation without reduction. From noun to verb (to bottle, vacationing), or verb to noun (a guess, a takeover). Interestingly, the conversion can change the connotation, for example to 'doctor' is seen as negative. The seventh is coinage. The invention of a distinct new word or term. Today, this usually happens commercially, like 'aspirin' or to 'google'. Eponyms are words originating from the name of a person or place. Did you know teddy bear is from Theodore Roosevelt? That sandwich is from the fourth Earl of Sandwich? Acronyms are words that are made from the initial letters of words, such as 'CD' from "compact disc". Some have become normalized enough to not be capitalized like 'laser' or 'radar'. The eighth is derivation, a common formation process. This is done adding infixes to a word, either a prefix (un-, mis-) and/or a suffix (-ism, -ness). In English, there's 90 prefixes and 110 suffixes. Lots of possibilities. Words are usually formed by going through several of these eight processes, for example 'snowballed' is a combination of 'snow' and 'ball', and then a conversion from a noun to a verb. I'm now going to write about suicide ideation. If that's not your cup of tea, you may want to skip this one. I want to make it clear, I'm currently at peace with life with no suicidal thoughts. The intention is mainly to discuss how I intend to prevent an escape if I lose peace. Around the age of 8-10, I had become too different for my peers to ignore. This lead to social rejection and the loss of my story. After this, I'd develop what I call my survival mode. Simplified, this mode increases competency by allowing you to go the extra mile every day. This leads to an increase in negative affective feelings, requiring a story for guidance. It's a miserable state, so you need a story to keep you going. From age 10 to 22, the story was the hope to become accepted and respected again, by becoming financially successful and improving social skills. By age 12-13, it was clear to me I was terrible at socializing, it'd be easier to focus on financial success. At age 19, I had made little progress socially, but I felt financially comfortable to leave school, moving to another country a few months later, mainly for tax purposes, but also to refresh my story. At age 21, I still hadn't made progress socially, quite the opposite. I kept failing and gradually losing my story. That's until I learned about my inattentive nature, getting an assessment and starting medication, keeping the story alive, one last chance I thought. Long story short, I lost my story. I realized I had never really turned off my survival mode. I could never connect with anyone genuinely in that state. I pushed away anyone that threatened my story and sense of control. I rejected anyone getting too close or when I felt too overwhelmed to keep my performance going. I turned hostile on psychiatrists that suggested I may have autism, giving all sorts of explanations for why they were mistaken. I didn't know who I was, I had no authenticity, I only had a facade. Everything unraveled. With no story guiding me, I could not keep my act going. This was a time of despair with an ever growing desire to escape. Distracting myself kept me going. Now, at 24, I've left everything behind, all distractions. I started writing as a way to make sense of my situation. The last month has been the best time of my life since I lost my story the first time. I made peace with life without a story. It required me to lose fear, including fear of death. While in survival mode without a story, my brain short circuits, suggesting suicide to regulate. Fear of death deterred actualization of this. I have to consider the implications of fearing death less, in case I lose my peace, survival mode taking over. Yesterday was a reality check. It's clear to me that my peace is still highly dependent on my environment. As I turn down my survival mode, I run a greater risk of standing out. I try to wear clothes that don't make me stand out too much while still being comfortable. This allows me to ease my need to control my manners and movements, which is a prerequisite to reduce survival mode. It's more sunny lately, but my hands still get cold. I knew I was running a risk wearing gloves, but I forgot the dangers of standing out, in terms of activating my survival mode. I wasn't wearing headphones, making me more approachable. While I was out for a walk, a person I passed told me it wasn't cold today, asking why I was wearing gloves. I know this was probably friendly, but it seems I don't have much say in what it triggered. Before I was even aware, I'd already laughingly explained that my hands get cold. As I moved on I noticed how my mind was starting to blank. After ~5 hours, I started returning to myself. I had to distract myself as best I could. It concerned me how many thoughts of suicide came to me, having to constrain myself to not act out foolishly. Therefore, I have realized I must have some story to guide me if I shift more into survival mode. I must accept that I still have little control in its activation and I can't rely on luck. My story is that I may escape after I have made 1000 daily writings. This a round, tangible number that is realistic to reach, while also giving me time to work on finding a better solution. I need something tangible while in survival mode, as my ability to think is hampered, requiring a straightforward story to guide me. My goal is to write at least 1000 days (non-consecutive). I must not fail, no matter what. This is a practical story I can hold onto. I hope you will respect it.