Grammar Of or being a suffix that indicates smallness, youth, familiarity, affection, or contempt, as -let in booklet, -kin in lambkin, or -et in nymphet.
Of the kinds of words we have enumerated it may be observed that compounds are most in place in the dithyramb, strange words in heroic, and metaphors in iambic poetry.
And he sees the gradual disappearance of " whom, " for example, to be natural and no more regrettable than the loss of the case-endings of Old English.
The meaning of some compounds is transparent, which seems to be the composition of the semantic components of the sub-lexemes, just like the composition of the meaning of words in a phrase.
Mr. McWhorter's academic speciality is language history and change, and he sees the gradual disappearance of “whom, ” for example, to be natural and no more regrettable than the loss of the case-endings of Old English.