A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1172

What back-formations have you come up with? I asked our readers this week. Here’s a selection from the responses.

German-speaking students in my English class say presentate when referring to giving a presentation.
-Lisa Nazarenko, Vienna, Austria (lisanazarenko.101 gmail.com)

Here’s one of our favorites: vultch (verb intr.) - to hover attentively looking for an opportunity, such as a dog watching for dropped food. Back-formation from vulture.
-David Director, Media, Pennsylvania (david.d thedirectors.net)

A friend of mine, who volunteers as an usher for a local performing arts series, talks about how it’s time to go “ush,” or that he’ll be “ushing” at the next concert.
-Cindy Moyer, Chair, Department of Dance, Music, and Theatre, Professor of Violin, Viola, Music Theory, Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata, California (cm4 humboldt.edu)

The back-formation I use most often is to say, “I’m just going for a toil”, as a euphemism for going to the toilet.
-Francis Williamson, Algarve, Portugal (williamson sapo.pt)

Repub (v. tr., intr., from Republican) - to deny the truth, facts, or science about issues such as climate change, vaccines, immigrant behavior, election results, etc. for purposes of winning or exercising tyrannical power.
Usage example: “It’s blatantly false? That’s ok, I’ll Repub it.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

If a gubernatorial election determines a state’s leader, it seems logical that the winner would be a guber.
-Benjamin Kornelis, Minneapolis, Minnesota (benjaminkornelis gmail.com)

When my daughter Lana was in preschool, she came up with audient, a singular of audience (which she understood as audients): a single person for whom one performs.
-Aviva Megibow, Long Island, New York (avivameg yahoo.com)

Tegrity, opposite of integrity, the quality of politicians whose power rests on lies rather than truth.
-Steven Forde, Santa Fe, New Mexico (steven.forde gmail.com)

As we walked to the car, a good friend of mine used to say that she was happy to passenge, a back-formation of passenger.
-Will Hobbs, Cornelius, Oregon (willhobbs01 hotmail.com)

I would like to see more necine and fewer internecine interactions.
-Maureen Doyle, Boston, Massachusetts (momcdo gmail.com)

I see from your latest word series that my surname has been subject to a back-formation. I will speak to my chiropractor about that.
-William Pease, San Diego, California (peasewmj gmail.com)

I had to laugh when my daughter came home from college for a visit, and went to hang with some old friends to conversate.
-Rick Harrington, Guerneville, California (rhgtn sonic.net)

An instructor at my medical school made a verb, prophylact (meaning “prevent”) from the noun prophylaxis. I don’t think that it caught on, though. I think that the instructor was referring to the use of antibiotics to prevent a surgical infection.
-Bill Reamy, Victor, New York (wrreamy aol.com)

My favourite back-formation: cantanker. A quality that might be shown by an irritable old gent as in “OMG, he shows such a lot of cantanker.” (Naturally in my book old ladies don’t show cantanker, or irrit for that matter.)
-Janet Rizvi, Gurgaon, India (janetrizvi gmail.com)

“Unfort” works handily and clearly for the too long “unfortunately”, especially in texts.
-Barbara Degyansky, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (degyansky verizon.net)