Springing into Allergies
Spring has Sprung
Spring has sprung in the Pacific Northwest and all that comes with it. Oregon weather is all over the map; we can experience snow one day, 70 degrees and sun the next and of course rain is possible at any given moment as long as a cloud is in the sky. But it is undeniably spring here when the crocus flowers emerge, cherry trees blossom, and sneezes of allergy sufferers can be heard everywhere you go. Through itching eyes I noticed the word allergy and became curious as to how it is built, knowing it would make a great word investigation to share on our blog. I’d like to use this post to walk you through just how we use scientific inquiry to understand the spelling, pronunciation and meaning of words.
Under investigation: Allergy
Meaning: As with any word under investigation, it is essential that we know what the word means, so that is always our first question. Our students quickly learn that English spelling’s first priority is representing a word’s “meaning.” We can understand a word’s pronunciation when we learn where the word came from, the environment in which it was born and the phonological system which governs it. I think the word “allergy” and its relatives will surprise you and help you see the synergy of morphology, etymology and phonology in English spelling.
When you think of the word allergy, you may think of something that makes a person sneeze. Some of my students might say they have allergies or are allergic to gluten or dairy or even spelling, well at least the cheeky ones. We may first look to a dictionary for a clear definition.
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines the word allergy as a noun that is: a damaging immune response by the body to a substance, especially pollen, fur, a particular food, or dust, to which it has become hypersensitive. That fits my understanding of the word and I imagine yours.
Related words: Once we understand a word’s general meaning, we can generate a list of related words to expand our study. Such a list may include: allergies, allergic, allergen and hypoallergenic. This generation of words is a great way of leading to our next question which is: what is the structure of the word?
Structure: Let’s hypothesize the structure of the words on our list of potential relatives. Doing so, we can begin to determine if the words are morphological relatives. Do you see any clear affixes and/or a base? Every word minimally has one base to which prefixes and suffixes and connecting vowel letters may be affixed, altering the use of the base grammatically or adding meaning. Here are some starting hypotheses of structure:
allerg + y (base <allerg> and suffix <y>)
al+ lerg + en (prefix <al> as in altogether, base <lerg> and suffix <en>)
all+ er + g + ic (base <all> plus suffixes <er> and <ic>; but what about the <g>)? There is no <g> suffix or a connecting consonant so this is null.
hypo + allerg + en+ ic→ hypoallergenic. (We can notice this prefix “hypo” and note that it suggests a Greek origin because of the medial <y>. We can even generate a quick list of other words that include this element.)
Now that we have some working hypotheses, we go to an etymology dictionary (www.etymonline.com). Here we will learn where the word allergy comes from, its original sense and meaning (etymology) and clues as to the word’s structure (morphology). The entry for “allergy” reads as follows:
allergy (n.)
"condition caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances," 1911, from German Allergie, coined 1906 by Austrian pediatrician Clemens E. von Pirquet (1874-1929) as an abstract noun from Greek allos "other, different, strange" (from PIE root *al- (1) "beyond") + ergon "work, activity" (from PIE root *werg- "to do").
What a great story! There is a saying in the SWI world: “All stories are made up of words and every word has a story.” Many medical and science words were created by scientists using Greek elements based on observations. The meaningful structure of these words can give us an understanding of what something is or does or how it was known at the time. This entry has given us two meaningful morphemic elements.
Further Investigation: First we can revise our hypothesized analyses of each or our words. As the first element is <all> from the Greek word allos with the sense of “other,” it explains our second <l> and it differentiates it from the prefix <al>. And the element <erg> is another base from Greek ergon which has the sense of “work”. So our revised word sums are as follows:
all + erg + y→ allergy
all + erg + en → allergen
all + erg + ic→ allergic
Now we can also apply meaning. It can be very tempting to force fit literal meaning “other work” from these elements. That does work in many words, but this word was created by a scientist with nuance. This story is simply: it wasn’t a cold causing patient symptoms, it was another thing at work on the sinuses. Allow this word to sit for over 100 years and it loses and gains meanings and applications. As with many words built using Greek elements, it is relegated to scientific and or more scholarly domains. We have words like “other,” “strange,” and “work” for everyday language.
Back to Relatives: Our word appears to have two bound base morphemes which means they must acquire other morphemes or affixes to be a complete word in English. If we follow <all> as a base, we find words like parallel, allele and allegory. These words inhabit math, science and literary worlds which highlights how this work can be done in all subjects and not just relegated to English Language Arts!
As we turn our eyes to the base <erg>, a student might get a little excited. Or shall I say energized. They may even experience synergy as we work together to create a list of words and generate a matrix. And all of this may lead to noticing new affixes and recognizing them from other word families we’ve worked with previously.
Writing word sums and reading the word: As we work with the matrix below, writing word sums and being careful to spell out each morpheme by naming the graphemes, checking joins and finally writing the final word, we can finally talk about how to announce the word. We can also notice that when we add the suffix <es> to suffix <y>, the <y> changes to <i> but is still pronounced with the same “long e.” We can also notice the different pronunciation of the <g> in “ergonomic” and “energy” and talk about why that is. Do you know why? Now you may think the word “ergonomics” is too sophisticated for a grade schooler but why? If they understand how it is built and what it means they may find uses for it. Or they may just bank it for later.
This is a prime example of how a scientific study of a word can lead to so much more than rote memorization spelling words or from curriculum-determined age appropriate spelling lists.
