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ooglification
Nov. 8th, 2018 08:01 amooglification (oog-li-fi-KAY-shuhn) - n., the supposed linguistic process whereby a word is made slangier by replacing a vowel with -oo-.
The word was made up as a satire by linguistics professor Roger Wescott in a 1977 article "Ooglification in American English Slang," but has been cited by non-linguists since as if it's a real thing. It's true that cigaroot is slangier than cigarette and Scandihoovian is slangier than Scandinavian, but there's no real process here. The form of the word came from Wescott's supposed type-example for the process, oogly from ugly. For more info, see here and there.
---L.
The word was made up as a satire by linguistics professor Roger Wescott in a 1977 article "Ooglification in American English Slang," but has been cited by non-linguists since as if it's a real thing. It's true that cigaroot is slangier than cigarette and Scandihoovian is slangier than Scandinavian, but there's no real process here. The form of the word came from Wescott's supposed type-example for the process, oogly from ugly. For more info, see here and there.
---L.
