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The word formation process that yielded the word coon is called (fore-)clipping:

raccoon > coon

Other examples of fore-clipping include: bot (robot), chute (parachute), roach (cockroach), coon (raccoon), gator (alligator), phone (telephone), pike (turnpike), varsity (university), net (Internet).

For some of these examples, the clipping simply reverts a previous compounding: notably, it preserves existing word stems.

But not for raccoon, which comes from Algonquian arahkun: there does not seem to be anything to revert, and the word simply becomes one syllable shorter.

Similarly, bot does not preserve word stems: robot derives from robota (forced labor), which in turn (reportedly) derives from PIE *orbh-.

I wonder whether there is a driving force that helped establish these words as lexical units (such as, a strong preference for one-syllable words), and whether there is a pattern for how words such as these can be born, or whether they emerged and caught on by mere chance.

tchrist
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anemone
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    Roach and gator also do not preserve the original morphemes. – herisson May 05 '15 at 16:35
  • @sumelic As a non-native speaker, I'd no idea what "gator" was before reading the linked Wikipedia entry, and as for cockroach, I'm afraid I would have been quite happy with the folk etymology. – anemone May 05 '15 at 16:38
  • I'd be careful with that word - my reading of it is a racially pejorative term... sorry can't help with the origin, but people should be aware that it is one of those word we avoid... – tom May 05 '15 at 16:42
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    There's nothing special here about roots. If a syllable is unstressed, there is likelihood it would be dropped in English in informal speech. It is just coincidence that the examples at that wiki page on clipping tend to be recognizable roots. Also, as @tom notes, 'coon' is now often heard as a pejorative and so might be considered taboo. – Mitch May 05 '15 at 17:13
  • @Mitch In 'robot', what is dropped is the stressed syllable. Fact is, some words get clipped, others don't. I guess I'm merely asking which, and why. – anemone May 05 '15 at 18:18
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    Because "rack" would mean something different. – Greg Lee May 05 '15 at 18:20
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    And ... I did look the word up before asking, so I was aware about a possible pejorative hearing. I believe (but may be wrong in that respect), that the word formation process for this and other examples is sufficiently interesting to warrant its appearance here, as has been the case with numerous other words of dubious character, Also, Maine coon cat breeders use the word quite unhesitatingly, as far as I'm aware. – anemone May 05 '15 at 18:24
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    @anemone: As do people who hunt the animal in question, or otherwise live in close proximity to it. It's all about context. As for instance I doubt if anyone would object to me describing my female dog as a bitch, or my male dog as the son of one, or saying that ham and bacon come from pigs. Yet all those terms, and many more, could be considered perjoratives in some contexts. – jamesqf May 05 '15 at 18:45
  • @anemone re 'robot' -> 'bot': all sound changes in language are regular, it's just finding the exact circumstances. 'robot' doesn't fit the circumstances here. I don't think it is a phonetic thing (it's not reduction of an unstressed syllable). I think people just think use 'bot' as a deliberate abbreviation because 'rob' just doesn't sound good. – Mitch May 05 '15 at 19:27
  • @Mitch But before claiming that people use 'bot' because 'rob'doesn't sound good, one should find out why people choose to clip robot, but not a multitude of other words. – anemone May 05 '15 at 19:41
  • @anemone: Also, at least as I have seen them used, 'robot' and 'bot' are rather different things. A robot is basically some physical hardware, while a bot is software. – jamesqf May 05 '15 at 22:50
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    @jamesqf: That software "bot" originated from software "robot" (that's why the file robots.txt is named the way it is) and people have been referring to hardware robots as bots for quite a long time now (perhaps inspired by the clipping of android to droid in star wars?) – slebetman May 06 '15 at 05:41
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    It's a word because people use it as a word, just like all the other words. – curiousdannii May 06 '15 at 10:26
  • There is a tendency to shorten frequently-used, familiar words. The rules for how this happens are not written down anywhere, though. – Hot Licks May 06 '15 at 12:01
  • @anemone Please explain why you reverted by edit? It's a more accurate title, less sensationalist considering it reached the hot network questions list, and the tags were better! – curiousdannii May 07 '15 at 23:03
  • @curiousdannii I think I know what I wanted to ask, and I asked it. Your edit changed the meaning considerably, I was not happy with it, and did not want it associated with my name. Surely, if you take the liberty to edit other people's posts at this extent, you are ready to admit they might not always appreciate it. I am sorry my title appears "sensationalist" to you; I intended no such effect and the question was genuine. – anemone May 08 '15 at 14:44
  • @anemone I don't understand how it is different. You're asking why raccoon is shortened to coon rather than racc or something else. – curiousdannii May 08 '15 at 22:24

1 Answers1

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Native speakers often know nothing about the derivation of words they use. Who knew that raccoon was an Algonquin word?

Daily or otherwise frequent encounters with the object referred to by the noun probably has a lot to do with the clipping.

A person who has nothing to do with robots (who doesn't make them, who doesn't read sci-fi books about them, who doesn't spend any time on the internet to speak of)—an elderly dairy farmer in Iowa, perhaps— is not likely to refer to a robot as a bot. And an investment banker on Wall Street, say, is far less likely to use the word gator than someone living on the bayou.

These clipped forms can eventually make their way into the general vocabulary in a number of ways. There are lots of TV shows, for example, about alligators these days.

TimR
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  • The only place where I heard the words 'roach', 'gator' and 'chute' were crime and action TV series... – Lucky May 05 '15 at 17:01
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    +1 for daily and frequent encounters. In my world, a "brake press" is a "brake", a "progressive die" is a "prog die", a "potentiometer" is a "pot", a "proximity switch" is a "prock switch", etc. This is the same process that made "copper" [policeman] into "cop" and "omnibus" into "bus". – Mike May 06 '15 at 01:19
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    @Mike Although depending on what sources you use, "copper" and "cop" might have happened the other way round: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/81451/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-copper-for-referring-to-a-police-officer – Matthew Steeples May 06 '15 at 08:46
  • Thanks. A really good answer that emphasizes the word formation process itself, and blurs the (perhaps false) word/not-word dichotomy that, in my preoccupation with "coon", I tried to establish. – anemone May 06 '15 at 09:14
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    @Lucky - You've led a rather sheltered life. Go into a store, down the bug spray aisle, and you will find "Ant and Roach Killer". – Hot Licks May 06 '15 at 21:12
  • @Mike - I don't think anyone actually uses "potentiometer", except in formal writing. The folks who don't know what a "pot" is wouldn't know what a "potentiometer" is either. – Hot Licks May 06 '15 at 21:14
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    @HotLicks I agree about the first part :-) as for the second, I would love to but I don't live in an English speaking country... I just wanted to agree with the idea that the TV is a means of introducing new words into the (spoken) language. – Lucky May 06 '15 at 21:44