It is only a question of finding the right words and putting them in the right order. There beyond a doubt lie plays more splendid than Antony and Cleopatra poems lovelier than the 'Ode to a Nightingale' novels beside which Pride and Prejudice or David Copperfield are the crude bunglings of amateurs. But can we use them? No, because words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. Yet there is the dictionary there at our disposal are some half-a-million words all in alphabetical order. If you want proof of this, consider how often in moments of emotion when we most need words we find none. But words do not live in dictionaries they live in the mind. Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries. They are the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most un-teachable of all things. Words, considered as symbols for humans, provide us with endlessly flexible conditional semantic stimuli, which are just as 'real' and effective for man as any other powerful stimulus. "It is obvious that the fundamental means which man possesses of extending his orders of abstractions indefinitely is conditioned, and consists in general in symbolism and, in particular, in speech. Julie Beck, "How to Look Smart." The Atlantic, September 2014 Put another way: simpler writing seems smarter." Counter-intuitvely, grandiose vocabulary diminished participants' impressions of authors' cerebral capacity. looked at how using big words (a classic strategy for impressing others) affects perceived intelligence. Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, 1912 Nevertheless there they are we have got to live with them, and the wise course is to treat them as we do our neighbours, and make the best and not the worst of them." We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with a mop we expect them to help us to grip and dissect that which in ultimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow.
Let us try to understand this through an example. Sometimes a single word can carry a number of morphemes. For example, when we say giraffe, it consists of a number of syllables but a single morpheme. However, a morpheme is not similar to a syllable as it carries a meaning. As you can see they express a direct meaning yet cannot be further separated into smaller parts. For example, chair, dog, bird, table, computer are all morphemes. A morpheme cannot be further broken into parts.
What is a Morpheme?Ī morpheme refers to the smallest meaningful element of a word. This article attempts to highlight this difference through a description of the two terms. It can sometimes convey a meaning and sometimes not. The difference between the two is that while a word always conveys a meaning, in the case of a morpheme, this is doubtful. A morpheme is usually considered as the smallest element of a word or else a grammar element, whereas a word is a complete meaningful element of language. A language consists of various elements such as sentences, words, syllables, morphemes, etc. The best way to understand word and morpheme, when they become rather confusing, is through understanding the difference between the two, the word and the morpheme.