Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Page 57

46 Orð og tunga
efniseindum tók að breiðast út hér á landi. En svo kom allt í einu
atómsprengjan, sem allir tala um, og enginn lætur sér detta í
hug að nefna hana frumeindasprengju. Orðið atóm er þar með
orðið fast í málinu, við eins konar þjóðaratkvæðagreiðslu, og
það fer ekki þaðan aftur. (Sigurður Pétursson 1946:32)
[A few decades ago there were only a few people in Iceland
who talked about atoms and molecules. They immediately
prepared themselves and formed the words frumeind ‘atom’
and sameind ‘molecule’, which were good words, and these
words were used by many when knowledge of these units
of matt er started to spread in this country. But then sudden-
ly came the atom bomb, which everyone talks about, and it
doesn’t occur to anyone to call it frumeindasprengja. The word
atóm is thereby established in the language through a kind of
referendum, and it will not be gott en rid of.]
Indeed this is the sole attestation for the word frumeindasprengja in
ROH.
The standard dictionary Íslensk orðabók (2002:49) lists ten com-
pounds beginning with atóm- as separate lemmata: atómeðlisfræði
‘atomic physics’, atómfræði ‘atomic science’, atómknúinn ‘atom-driv-
en’, atómkveðskapur ‘atom poetry’, atómskáld ‘atom poet’, atómstyrj-
öld ‘atomic war’ (variant atómstríð), atómstöð ‘atom station’, atómtala
‘atomic number’, atómvopn ‘atomic weapon’ and atómþungi ‘atomic
weight’ (variant atómþyngd). Two of these (atómkveðskapur and atóm-
skáld) relate to the modernist poets, the remainder to atomic chemis-
try, physics, power or war. The dictionary lists the lemma frumeind
(396) but does not include any complex compounds formed with
frumeinda(r)-. It is likely that many of the compounds listed with only
a few att estations in ROH are not established but are understood as
nonce formations.
While both the loan word atóm and the neologism frumeind ap-
pear in the literal meaning of ‘atom’ both alone and in compounds
in ROH, the loan word dominates metaphorical uses in compounds.
One reason for this may be that the lexicalized meaning of the com-
pound may dissolve when it is combined with further elements. As
frumeind is itself compound, further compounds formed with it are
already complex compounds; while these are not uncommon in Ice-
landic, they are somewhat marked. A complex compound generally
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