The Rice University Neologisms Database

a moron or idiot, no sense of surroundings, worthless, simply an ignorant person The first person I every heard say this was my cousin. I knew right then she was calling me an idiot just by the sound but never fully comprehended its origin and meaning. After hearing it again when I got older I knew that this was a simple combination of the words ignorant and idiot, which I now know as a blending process. It is a simple word that is used normally by younger children not even in their teens because they are mostly likely told by their mothers not to call anyone an idiot. Instead they came up with a word that sounded very similar by putting together two words that have the same meaning, thus they are doubly emphasizing their point when they call someone an iggiot. It is also an example of assimilation because the d in idiot changes to a g when the words are compounded because g never comes after d in English words. Though children would not know this grammar rule, it came from the child’s innate ability to distinguish proper sounding words because if the d did not change the word would be extremely hard to pronounce.