Words, words

Supersize. How do new words become part of a language? Let's look at an example: supersize. McDonald's first used the word in a publicity campaign: They offered customers extra large or Supersize portions.

This was a mistake, as health campaigners declared their products to be a risk, following Morgan Superlock's 2004 documentary Super Size Me. McDonald's took supersizes off the menu, but the words is now in the dictionary, The word is formed by the prefix super- which means 'large' ( for example superpower), or 'better' ( like superman), plus the word 'size'. Today, the prefix super- is often negative and means 'excessive', so we complain about the super-rich. We can now talk about supersized children, who are excessively fat because of overeating, and supersized shopping centres, which are simple too big.

Chuggers. British shopping centers are full of people who ask for money: These are chuggers This is a neologism that combines 'charity' with 'mugger'. It refers to those irritating people who aggressively expect us to give them charity or, more to the point, money. A real mugger doesn't ask , he just takes your bag or wallet and runs: if you resist he uses violence. Fortunately, chuggers do not use violence, but they are irritating, aren't they?

Hoodies. There is a new breed of mugger in the UK, especially in shopping centres: the hoody. These are young people who wear a sweatshirt with a hood. The hood covers their heads and most of their faces so that police cannot identify them through security cameras ( which are installed in most shopping centres). Hoodies don't only mug people; they also go shoplifting, stealing articles from shops and their hoods make identification very difficult.