ANTONOMASIA IN TERMS OF ENRICHMENT OF ENGLISH-LANGUAGE COMPUTER LEXIS

Abstract

The article deals with the antonomasiac neologisms as a factor of enrichment of computer lexis and English language as a whole, as well as with the main ways and mechanisms of new IT-related words formation. Although some scholars argue that antonomasia, that is, using a proper name in order to express a general idea, is barely a "marginal" way of word-creation in computer lexis and the English language as a whole, we do believe it to be a promising and efficient way of creating new words, the meaning of which can be easily guessed or deduced. New words created through antonomasia account for only around 1.5 per cent of our corpus of computer lexis, but due to their functional simplicity and wide availability of ready models, this means of word-creation has earned wide popularity not only in the specialized media outlets, but in the mainstream media as well. For example, the name of the hero Beowulf has given birth to the new word-combination "Beowulf cluster" (several computers linked into a network via a high-speed connection), the name of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has evolved into "zuckering" (misadjusted privacy settings on the social media), and Wikipedia has called into existence the "Wikipedia kids" (students who mindlessly rely on the Internet data). Finally, due to the Airbnb renting service, such previously unheard of word as “Airbnbable” (characteristics of a room or flat that make it eligible for the eponymous service) were brought to life. It may thus be considered proved that antonomasia takes an active part in enrichment of the modern computer lexis; the research may continue in terms of establishing and analyzing basic and most productive proper names that enable the creation of new words and expressions.