Roots
Minting and coining
Deepti

THE process of creating new words is termed ‘coining’ or ‘minting’. Used in English since the 16th century, the process of ‘coinage’ has often been compared with the manufacture of new coins. The metaphor of coinage is so well established that languages are said to ‘borrow’ and ‘loan’ words as if they are money. Every era throws up new ways of coining words, ensuring that coinages never become dull.

The word ‘googol’ has an interesting story behind it. In his book Mathematics and Imagination, Edward Kasner tells the story of the birth of the word ‘googol’. He once asked his nephew Milton Serotta to give a name to the figure comprising the number one followed by 100 zeroes. Milton thought for a moment and then replied, ‘ a googol’. The googol captured the attention of the world of mathematics and went on to create words like ‘googolplex’ and ‘googolhedron’. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin were looking for a name for their popular search engine, they decided upon googol, changing it to google in the process. They felt that it aptly reflected the goal of google, which is to organise the information on the World Wide Web into googol-like numbers. Informal usage created the verb ‘to google’ that means ‘searching the www’.

The present age is witness to many coinages. Marian Salzman (the author of Next Now), the person who spotted and popularised the coinage ‘metro sexual’, points out some instances of coinage that reflect our times. ‘Adultescence’ is used for the ‘kidults’ who are caught between an independent life in the world and living with parents at home. Many people today prepare, cook and eat food with such pomp and show that this coinage became imperative: ‘gastro porn’. MNC employees who are insecure due to severe competition are suffering from ‘Bangalore envy’. Today’s fusion of religion and business has created the coinage ‘churchonomics’. ‘Truth lite’ refers to the rampant lies and half-truths people use to avoid sticky situations. In place of philanthropy, the world today has ‘unilanthropy’, which is the picking out of a niche cause and pursuing it diligently.