![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Burger-Beer-Labels-Burger-Brewing-Company_38982-1.jpeg\" "\\"Burger-Beer-Labels-Burger-Brewing-Company_38982-1\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s been mentioned recently in my Linguistics course that the perception of speech by listeners is a strong factor in language change. Sometimes, listeners become aware of the true phrase, and are mocked as in the FedEx commercial<\/a>:\u00a0“We get fringe benefits, not French benefits.” Putting myself on the chopping block, I used to think that the Juan de Fuca\u00a0tectonic\u00a0plate<\/a> was the Wanda Fuca plate, and that Prog Rock was Prague Rock. (Rock on Czech Republic!) The other option is that listeners are not corrected, misinterpret the divisions of words, and make new words based off of that assumption. These are 3 examples.<\/p>\n 1. Alcohol + ic –> Alco + holic<\/em><\/p>\n Alcohol comes from Arabic ‘al-kuhl’ meaning ‘the metallic powder used to color eyelids.’ \u00a0Now ‘-holic’ is used to mean addict, but never a real medical problem as in chocoholic, workaholic, shopaholic, etc.<\/p>\n 2. Watergate –> Water + gate<\/em><\/p>\n This productive scandal suffix is mocked in an episode of Flight of the Conchords, when Jemaine assumes that the original debacle was called ‘Watergategate.” No one scandal stands out in my mind using this suffix, as soon as the news cycle moves on the name fades away, but the field is so open that if your friend gets mad that you don’t text her back, it could be called Textgate. I vaguely recall Strippergate and Tigergate, please check out the\u00a0mind-bogglingly long\u00a0list on Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3. Hamburg + er –> Ham + burger<\/em><\/p>\n Hamburg is a place in Germany where they make meat sandwiches. Burg<\/em> means city, and Ham<\/em> kind of means ‘bend in the river’, describing the area of the settlement. Ham<\/em> as the edible piggy product comes from the same Old English root hamme<\/em>, meaning ‘knee bend,’ seen in hamstring<\/em>. It makes sense why it seemed like ham<\/em> modified burger<\/em>, instead of -er<\/em> modifying Hamburg<\/em>. In any case, cheeseburger, veggieburger, tofuburger, all branch off from this, making -burger a productive affix. It’s fun to reverse engineer the misunderstanding and imagine that vegetarians all come from Tofuburg, or that California boys come from In-N-Outburg.<\/p>\n