In our era it doesn’t seem terribly odd that a fresh, exciting and highly popular industry, such as the internet, would begin generating new words to fill our dictionaries – and 1914 wasn’t any different. The column posted on the right introduced the readers of THE NEW YORK TIMES to a new verb contributed by the early film industry:
“The verb ‘to film’ having gained currency, it must be graciously admitted to the language. It will soon be in the ‘advanced’ dictionaries and it must be recognized. The old idea of protecting the English language from invasion is extinct. To ‘film’ means to make a picture for a ‘movie’ show'”.
During the past twenty years, Hollywood provided us with a whole slew of terms, such as “dramedy” (a combination between a comedy and a drama) and “romcom” (romantic comedy), “sitcom” (situation comedy) to name only a few.
Click here to read another article about the impact of film on the English language.
