FEATURED NEOLOGISM:

Sgrammatura (italian)
It describes the tactic of reducing a product size (grammatura = the amount in grams, marked by a privative -s prefix) while keeping the same price, effectively resulting in hidden inflation. Even though I dislike the phenomenon for clear reasons, I appreciate this word because it seems to have unexpectedly triumphed over the Anglicism ‘shrinkflation,’ while maintaining a well-formed and comprehensible Italian morphology. It’s rare nowadays for an Italian neologism describing an international phenomenon to avoid being a calque or a direct borrowing so I feel compelled to celebrate this neologism, despite it refers to an irksome practice.

Sbriciolare (la tavola) (Italian)
This neologism is only used within my family sociolect and was coined by my nephew, who is 4 years old, to describe the act of clearing crumbs from the table. Interestingly, ‘sbriciolare’ actually means to reduce something to crumbs or to scatter something, but in our household, it has immediately acquired the new sense. We creatively imagine ‘briciolare’ as a verb (though it doesn’t officially exist) meaning to add crumbs (briciole), and the privative prefix -s conveys the intended meaning of removing them. It’s quite amusing to hear the many neologisms children invent to describe things and actions for which surprisingly, there would not be a precise word.

I hold a PhD in Linguistics with postdoctoral research experience in Terminology, Translation Studies, Specialized Translation, and Corpus Linguistics. My research has consistently centered on the planning, management, dissemination, and impact of terminology in modern languages. I have published several papers on terminological aspects, including some related to the concept of neologism. For example on the development of translation strategies for filling terminological gaps or on the impact of the English language behind neologism adoption. I also have conducted fieldwork analyzing lexical variations and proliferation of terminological cluster within vertical stratified domains.