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z Finally, a language can generate new words by combining existing
words and word parts. Examples of this type of word generation
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combining parts from other words to form portmanteau words, as
we saw with gerrymander.Meme (noun)An idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person in
a culture.z Although it is now commonly used with regard to the Internet,
meme was not originally an Internet term. It was coined in 1976 by
the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
ż Dawkins’s coinage deliberately drew on Greek and was
purposely imitative, as he explains in his book 7KH6HO¿VK*HQH: We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys
the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of
imitation. “Mimeme” comes from a suitable Greek root,
but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like “gene.” I
hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate
mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could
alternatively be thought of as being related to “memory,”
or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to
rhyme with “cream.”ż In this explanation of how he created a new word, Dawkins
explicitly calls attention to its Greek root and meaning, its
pronunciation, and its relationship to a known word, gene.ż In fact, Dawkins based his idea of memes on the behavior of
genes, in that they can replicate and mutate.z Recently, meme has gained new life online as a descriptor of
pictures, videos, phrases, and themes that “go viral”—that is,
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