From Plenipotentiary to Puddingless: Users and Uses of New Words in Early English Letters

Tanja Säily, Eetu Mäkelä, Mika Hämäläinen

We study neologism use in two samples of early English correspondence, from 1640--1660 and 1760--1780. Of especial interest are the early adopters of new vocabulary, the social gro…