Re: Nadsat (was: Re: CONLANG T-Shirt: "Your yahzick...")

Matt Pearson writes:
 > Somebody already mentioned the wordplay element to Nadsat -
 > using "eggiweg" for "egg" and so on.  My favourite is when wordplay

That was me :-)

 > is applied to the slavicisms.  So alongside "malchick" (= boy, guy),
 > we occasionally get the emphatic form "malchickiwick".

There's also yarbles and yarblockos, both meaning "balls".

As in "Come get one in the yarbles! If you have any yarbles!" or
"Yeah! Kick him in the yarblockos!"

And another slavic - Nadsat itself. "teen" roughly, though Russian at
least starts using "nadsat" at eleven - odinadsat, dvanadsat,
trinadsat, etc.

 > In addition to these elements, there's also acronyms and other
 > abbreviations, such as "staja" for "state jail" (= penitentiary),
 > and "pee and em" for "pop and mum" (= parents).

Two other variant usages are phrases for certain words, such as "the
old in and out" (I think we can all guess what that one means :-) and
using an unusual part of a name to identify someone, as in "Ludwig
van" (that is, Beethoven).

So, Nadsat contains at least the following kinds of
borrowings/neologisms/slang sources:

1. Slavic borrowings, often with punny use of English. This seems to
be the largest category.

2. Repetitive cutsiness (eggiweg).

3. Abbreviations. Perhaps "charlie" is one of these, too, as c for
chaplain and the military letterals (alpha bravo charlie).

4. Phrases in lieu of words.

5. Non-standard naming.

Brook


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