Whadda'yat?!

Most of us use this pieced together word everyday, and it is becoming increasingly more popular. While it is still mainly used in informal settings (as it isn't exactly "proper" English), it seems to be creeping into more and more situations. Now this isn't a hard word to come across, just walk pretty much anywhere and you'll hear it, but when I heard it at my dad's office the other day, it struck me as strange. Now, my dad doesn't work in your typical office or anything, it's much more casual than most. One of his employees walked in the other day, and exclaimed "Whadda'yat Paul?!" and my dad just went on like this was normal, and carried on a conversation with the man (I  have no idea what his name was), telling him what he had to do next. This was a fairly informal conversation taking place in what is typically thought to be a formal situation. The only other people present besides my dad and his employee were my mother and myself, who had dropped in to drop something off.

This word is a good, yet informal example of portmanteau morphology. This is a process found in most languages where two or more words are blended into one, and the meaning does not typically change drastically. The word "whadda'yat" takes four words ("what are you at" meaning "what are you doing?") and makes them one jumbled up word. Other examples of portmanteau morphology in English would incluse things such as smoke and fog put together to form "smog" and breakfast and lunch put together to form "brunch". While this is seen as a slang word, it seems to be making it's way more and more into our everyday lexicon, especially around Newfoundland. Also, the use of this word at the workplace like I seen in my fathers office, which is traditionally a very formal place shows the changes in our society, and how casual we are becoming with our speech in everyday situations, even when it may not be appropriate. These changes may eventually make it appropriate to say "whadda'yat" to your boss or your professor, as most of us now wouldn't do.