Playing with Language

Playing with Language

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Shortening Words
Modifying & Forming New Words
Expanding Vocabulary
See Also

There are various ways to play with the English language.

Click on the links to access the different concept sheets to discover some of them.

Shortening Words

Abbreviations

Contractions

The abbreviation of “Mister” is “Mr.”, the one for “kilogram” is “kg” and the one for “December” is “Dec.”

“NASA” is the acronym for “National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

“Don’t” is the contraction of “do not.” “You’ll” is the contraction of “you will”. “It’s” is the contraction of “it is.”

Modifying & Forming New Words

Prefixes & Suffixes

Portmanteau Words (Blends)

“Para” is a prefix that can be added to the word “normal” to create the word “paranormal.” “Ous” is a suffix that can be added to the word “courage” to form “courageous.”

The words “rain” and “bow” form the closed compound word “rainbow.’’ Description :

“Brunch” is a portmanteau word formed from the blend of the words “break” and “fast.”

Expanding Vocabulary

Antonyms & Synonyms

Idioms
(coming soon)

Figurative language
(coming soon)

“Up” and “down” are antonyms.“Happy” and “glad” are synonyms.

The idiom “couch potato” with a potato character sitting on a couch.

A person with a huge backpack next to the sentence “that bag weighs a ton!”.

(coming soon)

(coming soon)

False Cognates (False Friends)

Cognates (True Friends)

The word “crayon” means wax pencils in English. In French, it refers to pencils in general.

The English words “guitar” and “elephants” are almost the same as in French: they are cognates.

Homophones, Homographs & Homonym

Interjections

Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled different, like the words “knight” (k-n-i-g-h-t) and the word “night” (n-i-g-h-t). Homographs are spelled the same but sound different, like a “tear” of sadness and the verb “to tear.” Homonyms are spelled and sound the same, like the word ‘“bat” for both the animal and the stick-like object.

A person jumping for joy saying:” “Yay!” Another person falling down, saying: “Ouch!”

See Also