Bill Bryson's Essay: The Way Words Are Made

The Way Words Are Made Words come into existence in numerous ways. Bill Bryson mentions in his essay the ways words are made, such as: words through mistakes, taking words from others, etc.; but he does not mention one of the ways that they are made today. One of the ways words are made in this day and age is through pop culture. Pop culture, short for popular culture, is a number of things such as: ideas, customs, public figures, and products; typically pointed toward the general public, specifically young people. Some words are created through popular culture in these ways: social media, technology, and influential people. First, when it comes to making words, one of the biggest word factories is social media. For example, word “selfie” which originated from social media. Dictionary.com states the following: “a …show more content…
For example, the term “Bieber Fever” was created because of a young man, named Justin Bieber who is a famous singer. The Urban dictionary puts it like this: “The act… of being literally obsessed with Justin Bieber” (“Bieber fever”). In other words, this is when a person is infatuated with the famous boy name Justin Bieber. This term was created, because people really liked Justin Bieber: and so a term was created to describe this condition of being preoccupied with Justin Bieber. The last example is “Obamacare” this term was coined by Rush Limbaugh. Dictionary.com points out the following: “a federal law providing for a fundamental reform of the U.S. healthcare and health insurance system” (“Obamacare”). In other words, this means that there is a requirement, for a person to have a health protection guarantee. The reason why this word, came into existence is because we needed a word to describe this thing; before “Obamacare” existed we didn’t need it, but after this policy passed we created a word for it. In the end, people of influence, do in fact impact the creation of new