Wordemic

Wordemic–what does it mean?

Yes, I am aware it is not a real word. The first meaning of it could be as a take-off of the word “pandemic,” which is a disease that spreads over the large area. Since love of words is a disease that’s spread worldwide, I’d say it’s a pandemic. My one problem with this definition is that it involves using the morphemes of pandemic incorrectly (pandemic ≠ pand + emic).

The other meaning of it could be as a compound of word + emic. “Emic” is the study of a language or culture by an inside member of the group. Combined with words, this basically becomes the study of words from an inside member of language. It seemed an apt title for this blog.

I played around with keeping a dash between the two words, but it looked ugly. We have a habit of losing dashes in English, anyway.