THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”:

THE ROLE OF THE INTERNET IN ITS STUDY

Begoña García Bravo

Universidad de La Laguna

ABSTRACT

The English language is usually said to be poor in diminutive resources and its apparently
few diminutive expressions are considered unproductive. However, these are assumptions
not normally supported with real data. Indeed, Schneider’s seems to be the only systematic
work on the diminutive in English, although it does not make use of modern electronic
corpora. This paper analyses the behaviour of the English diminutive suffix “-et/-ette” by
using different sources: grammars, dictionaries, monographs, the British National Corpus
and the Internet. Searches on the net have been responsible for the most interesting discov-
eries, some of which contradict previous studies about this suffix.
KEY WORDS: Linguistics, English, diminutive, internet, British National Corpus, suffix,
“-et/-ette.”

RESUMEN

Se suele decir que la lengua inglesa es pobre en recursos diminutivos y sus aparentemente

THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”: THE ROLE... 133

pocas expresiones diminutivas se consideran improductivas. Sin embargo, estas suposicio-
nes no suelen ir acompañadas de datos reales. De hecho, el estudio de Schneider parece ser
el único trabajo sistemático sobre el diminutivo en inglés, aunque no hace uso de corpus
electrónicos modernos. Este artículo analiza el comportamiento del sufijo diminutivo “-et/
-ette” en inglés, partiendo de distintas fuentes: gramáticas, diccionarios, monografías, el
British National Corpus e Internet. Las búsquedas en la red han sido responsables de los
descubrimientos más interesantes; algunos de ellos contradicen estudios previos sobre este
sufijo.
PALABRAS CLAVE: lingüística, inglés, diminutivo, internet, British National Corpus, sufijo,
“-et/-ette.”

1. INTRODUCTION

The English language is often said to have a limited group of diminutive

expressions and some of them are regarded as unproductive: “It is a feature of many
other European languages as well, including English, where relatively few diminu-
tive suffixes are available, and where even these are being used with decreasing

REVISTA CANARIA DE ESTUDIOS INGLESES, 58; April 2009, pp. 133-145

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 frequency” (Sifianou 157). Likewise, it is assumed that the variety of values which
the diminutive is able to express in the romance languages does not seem to be
found in those of Germanic origin, such as English (Soler 28).
Statements like these are normally based on a narrow or biased understand-
ing of the concept of the diminutive and are not usually supported by a systematic
analysis of the English diminutive behaviour. Indeed, there are few studies about
the diminutive in the English language and none, for the time being, that draws its
data from large electronic corpora.
There is a tendency among dictionaries, grammars and pragmatic or typo-
logical studies about English to understand the diminutive as a suffix or suffixed
word which indicates mainly smallness and often attitude as well. The Oxford Eng-
lish Dictionary (hereafter abbreviated OED) defines it as follows:

1. Gram. Expressing diminution; denoting something little: usually applied to

derivatives or affixes expressing something small of the kind denoted by the primi-
tive word. 2. Gram. A diminutive word or term (see A.1); a derivative denoting
something small of the kind.

As in the OED definition, Hornby (s.v.) does not mention the diminutive
capacity to express attitude but he focuses only on diminution: “(gram, of a suff.)
indicating smallness; n. word formed by the use of a suff. of this kind, e.g. streamlet,
a small stream, lambkin, a small lamb”. A similar definition is given by the Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English: “a word formed by adding a diminutive suffix:
the word duckling is a diminutive, formed from duck”; below it explains that a
diminutive suffix is “an ending which is added to a word to express smallness”. A
BEGOÑA GARCÍA BRAVO 134

more recent dictionary, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, shares the same
idea: “a word or an ending of a word that shows that sb/sth is small, for example
piglet (=a young pig), kitchenette (=a small kitchen).”
Some other dictionaries include the attitudinal meaning of the diminutive in
their definitions. That is the case of Fowler and Fowler (s.v.): “Gram. (of a word or
suffix) implying smallness, either actual or imputed in token of affection, scorn, etc.
(e.g. -let, -kins) —n. Gram. a diminutive word or suffix”. Trask (s.v.), for his part,
mentions the attitudinal meaning more clearly in the entry of the word diminutive:

1 A derivational affix which may be added to a word to express a notion of small

size, often additionally (or even instead) a notion of warmth or affection. 2 a word
formed by the use of such an affix.

Among the definitions given in pragmatic studies, it is worth mentioning

Sifianou’s (157) and Dressler and Merlini’s (144) since they both agree that the
diminutive is a derivative word that expresses mainly smallness but they explain
that it also has a connotative meaning. As an example of a typological work, Jurafsky
defines the diminutive as “a morphological device which means at least ‘small’”
(“Universals” 534).
However, it is important to realise that suffixation is not the only means to
express the diminutive linguistically. Recent research points out that the diminu-

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 tive is a universal concept (Schneider 5), therefore, those languages with no or few
suffixes must also be able to express diminution. Thus, an appropriate definition
should not be based on the linguistic form but the semantics of the diminutive.
After examining the already mentioned and other definitions1, I consider Schnei-
der’s (1)2 the most suitable to base any study about the diminutive on, particularly
the English one.
His definition allows different kinds of linguistic structures to be consid-
ered diminutives. This is of paramount importance for languages, such as English,
in which the diminutive concept tends to be expressed through analytic construc-
tions. This does not mean that the English language lacks diminutive suffixes. In
fact, the most recently published study about the English diminutive offers a list of
fifteen different diminutive suffixes, in which their spelling variants are not in-
cluded (Schneider 79).
The study which is presented in this paper attempts to cover some of the
gaps that exist in relation to the diminutive in English, such as the assumed
unproductiveness of the English diminutive suffixes, the apparently reduced scope
of diminutive meanings in English, the lack of studies about the diminutive based
on electronic corpora and the inexistence of a deep analysis of concrete English
diminutive suffixes. In order to select the corpus, I have taken Schneider’s defini-
tion (1), “a term which refers to all expressions of diminution”, as the point of
reference. Due to space reasons, this paper only deals with the behaviour of the
English diminutive suffix “-et/-ette.” The corpus selected in my research has been
taken from different sources, the most important being the British National Corpus
(herafter abbreviated BNC) and the Internet.

THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”: THE ROLE... 135

2. THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”

Of French origin, the suffix “-et/-ette” was introduced into the English
language during the Middle English period as a diminutive and feminine suffix.
The variant -et was originally masculine, while “-ette” indicated feminine. How-
ever, confusion between these two variants started in the 15th century and has
remained in some words even today. Although it seems to be true that “-Et is of
little use as an English formative” (OED), a new derivative with such an ending

1
The extension of this article does not allow the inclusion of all the definitions that have
been consulted. Those already mentioned may serve as examples of the tendency to understand the
diminutive as a suffix or derivative word meaning smallness and attitude. However, there are some
dictionaries and grammars which regard the diminutive differently. For instance, the Collins COBUILD
English Language Dictionary (s.v.) understands it as an adjective indicating smallness, while Peters
(s.v.) defines it as an affix implying small size.
2
Schneider (1, 4) defines the diminutive as “a term which refers to all expressions of
diminution,” which he understands as a bridge between the concepts of quantification and qualifi-
cation because it combines both size and attitude.

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 may still be admissible in English. The evidence I have found points out that the
English preference for “-ette” is not only due to linguistic reasons but to the social
phenomenon of “frenchification”3 (Peters s.v.). That is why I consider “-et/-ette”
spelling variants of the same diminutive suffix.
The suffix “-et/ette” has developed three meanings in English: “small,” “fe-
male” and “imitation” (Marchand 290; Peters s.v.; Zandvoort 303). While the first
two were derived from French, Marchand (290) claims that “imitation” is an exclu-
sive development of the English language. Apparently unrelated, these three mean-
ings are intimately connected through cognitive mechanisms. Thus, Jurafsky points
out that “small” is the central meaning within the diminutive concept and that
“female” derives from it through the metaphor “women are children/small things”
(“Universal” 546). He maintains that this can be explained because women are
generally considered marginal members of the society and the weakest people both
physically and socially in many cultures (“Universals” 427).
“Female” has been well accepted since the first French loans expressing that
meaning appeared in English in the 17th century. Indeed, the words “suffragette”
and “majorette,” from the French loans “suffrage” and “major,” were coined in the
English language in 1906 and 1941 respectively and, since then, new words have
been created, such as the most recent “gothette.” The English “suffragette” and
“majorette” were taken in 1907 and 1955 as loans by the French language (Dubois
s.v.), contributing then to the use of this meaning in French as Hasselrot (71) assures:
“a servi de modèle à plusieurs néologismes”. However, several authors regard the
meaning ‘female’ as chauvinistic and affirm that it has become obsolete (Quirk et al.
1549; Schneider 96; Peters s.v.). On the other hand, Jurafsky states that ‘imitation’
was created through generalization from “small type-of,” another meaning that he
BEGOÑA GARCÍA BRAVO 136

considers part of the concept of the diminutive. It refers to words in which the di-
minutive suffix indicates a small but different object from its base (“Universal” 553).
As part of a larger research I am carrying out on the English and Spanish
diminutives, I have studied the behaviour of the English diminutive suffix “-et/-
ette” by consulting, first of all, several prestigious English grammars and dictionar-
ies where this topic is mentioned (OED; Hornby; Longman Dictionary of Contem-
porary English; Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English; Peters; Quirk et
al.), as well as monographs on the word formation in English (Marchand;
Zandvoort). Muthmann’s Reverse English Dictionary has been especially useful to
my purpose because words are arranged alphabetically from their endings. I drew
up a list of English words ending in “-et/-ette” from all these sources. Likewise, the
BNC provided part of the data for analysis in order to achieve reliable results.
Despite being one of the best corpora for linguistic research in English, the
BNC presents important difficulties to look for affixes in general. The scientists
responsible for the searching programme associated to the corpus (SARA) recog-

3
This concept refers to the positive value and attractiveness that are added to expressions
of French origin for the only reason of being French.

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 nise that it has some gaps regarding affixes: “This was not entirely successful, since
several participants wanted to be able either to search by suffix [...] These are the
very things that SARA finds difficult” (BNC “BNC Workshop in Paris”). Eventu-
ally, I discovered a laborious but effective means to find words ending in “-et/-ette”:
the “pattern query.” It allows matching words of as many letters as dots have been
written before the ending “-et/-ette.” So I added dots before the suffix until no
words appeared in the corpus, checked that their meaning coincided with Schnei-
der’s definition (1) and incorporated the new diminutive words to my primary list.
Every word of the final list was looked for in the BNC in order to
contextualise it in specific examples belonging to different texts, and thus know if it
had fallen into misuse. By doing so, I realised that the corpus was not enough to
assure a word had been dropped from use in a language. Many of the words of my
original list did not appear despite being in use, what can be partly explained be-
cause spoken language only represents a 10% of the BNC data (BNC “What”).
Therefore, I decided to complement my study with searches on the Internet.
The use of the Internet could be questioned as presenting varieties of Eng-
lish different from those included in the BNC and, therefore, produce a heteroge-
neous result. Nevertheless, influences from non-British varieties appear in the men-
tioned corpus. In fact, the BNC authors recognise that “non-British English and
foreign language words do occur in the corpus” (BNC “What”). Besides, the use of
the Internet may enrich the research since it is a very powerful communication
means where new words are constantly appearing. In my opinion, the spontaneity
and creativity of the language on the Internet may be compared with those found
in the spoken language.
Interesting changes in the behaviour of “-et/-ette” were detected through

THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”: THE ROLE... 137

these searches4 on the net. While some of my discoveries confirm some features that
have been always attributed to the suffix, others on the contrary contradict what
some authors have long affirmed; for instance, the facts that “-et/-ette” is not an
especially productive diminutive suffix in English, that the meaning ‘female’ has
become obsolete, that the suffix can only convey three meanings or that the mean-
ing “small” is added only to words referring to objects.

3. WORDS IN “-ET/-ETTE”

After checking them both in the corpus and on the Internet, the words of
the resulting list were classified into three groups: English creations, loans from
French, and words that the BNC does not include in its database, in which crea-
tions and loans were also considered separately. The second group is also divided

4
Searches on the Internet were carried out through Google by typing each diminutive
word of my list. In order to contextualise the examples, I visited the web pages where the derivative
appeared and thus verified the site content.

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 into loans whose bases exist in English and loans whose bases do not form part of
the language at the moment.
These last loans (those for which there is not a separate base without “-et/-
ette,” such as “cygnet” or “brunette”) may be on the way to becoming lexicalised, if
we follow Huddleston and Pullum’s (1629) definition: “words that are or were ear-
lier morphologically analysable but which could not be formed with their present
meaning by the current rules of word-formation”. Nevertheless, I decided to include
them as diminutives in my corpus because the suffix still determines both their
belittling and affective values. These loans are no longer morphologically analysable
in English but “-et/-ette” is still partly responsible for their diminutive meaning.
In the following five tables, all the diminutive words of my corpus are re-
corded following a chronological order (from the earliest to the most recent words).
The first one corresponds to those words ending in “-et/-ette” which have been
created in English. The loans from French whose bases exist in the English lan-
guage are grouped in the second table, while the third one presents the loans with
no bases. The fourth table contains English creations that are not registered in the
BNC. Finally, French loans which are not part of the BNC database are included in
the fifth table.
Each table lists the following information: the derivative word, its diminu-
tive meaning (i.e. ‘small’, ‘female’ or ‘imitation’, besides others that will be explained
below), its register date, its base together with its date of register and origin. The
information related to the base does not appear in the case of those French loans
whose bases do not exist in the English language. These data have been drawn from
the OED and several etymological dictionaries, such as Ayto’s and Hoad’s. The date
of register for those words which do not appear in any dictionary has been taken
BEGOÑA GARCÍA BRAVO 138

from the earliest examples in either the BNC or the Internet.

Such a classification has been very useful to know that “-et/-ette” is a com-
pletely productive suffix in English. Indeed, forty of the sixty-one words selected in
my study have been created in the English language, seventeen of them in the 20th
and 21st centuries. It seems that this suffix got incorporated into the inventory of
the English derivative suffixes quite easily, since there are English creations as early
as the 14th and 15th centuries, such as “hogget” and “floweret” respectively.
The words selected in my analysis have corroborated the theory that, after
the confusion between the two spelling variants in the 15th century, those first
loans from French eventually ended up being written in “-et.” The only exception
seems to be “bannerette,” which is in turn the oldest loan (1300). Such an ending
predominates among the first derivatives coined in English, as for instance “hogget,”
“floweret,” “owlet,” etc. On the other hand, the spelling variant “–ette” became
very frequent in loans that entered the language within and after the 18th century,
when the suffix began to be totally assimilated into English. This ending finally got
established as the preferred variant by English speakers, since all the creations from
the 19th century on (excluding “midget”) finish in “-ette.”
Although most of the included words have French bases, this suffix has also
been used to form derivatives from words of different origins. Some examples are
“owlet,” “winceyette,” “demonette,” “cashmerette” and “balconette,” whose bases

09 Miscellany GARCÍA BRAVO.pmd 138 06/05/2009, 9:45

 TABLE I. WORDS CREATED IN ENGLISH (CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
DERIVATIVE MEANING REGISTER DATE BASE BASE DATE BASE ORIGIN
Hogget “child” 1370 Hog 1350 English
Packet “small” 1530 Pack 1225 Germanic
Owlet “child” 1542 Owl 725 Germanic
Nymphet “female” 1612 Nymph 1390 French
Snippet “small” 1664 Snip 1558 Germanic
Sermonette “small” “contempt” 1814 Sermon 1200 French
Novelette “contempt” 1814 Novel 1639 French
Midget “small” 1865 Midge 1796 English
Leatherette “imitation” 1880 Leather 1225 Germanic
Flannelette “imitation” 1882 Flannel 1503 Unknown
Suffragette “female” 1906 Suffrage 1534 French
Kitchenette “small” 1910 Kitchen 1000 Latin
Winceyette “imitation” 1922 Wincey 1808 Scandinavian
Luncheonette “small” 1924 Luncheon 1652 English
Usherette “female” 1925 Usher 1386 French
Dinette “small” 1930 Dining-room 1601 Germanic
Roomette “small” 1938 Room 1000 Germanic
Superette “small” 1938 Supermarket 1933 English
Majorette “female” 1941 Major 1579 French

THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”: THE ROLE... 139

Leopardette “imitation” 1975 Leopard 1490 French
Bottle-ette “small” 1990 Bottle 1375 French
Flingette “unimportant” “female” 1991 Fling 1827 Germanic
Hangarette “small” 1992 Hangar 1852 French
Fibette “unimportant” 1992 Fib 1611 Unknown

TABLE II. FRENCH LOANS WITH EXISTING BASES IN ENGLISH (CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
DERIVATIVE MEANING REGISTER DATE BASE BASE DATE BASE ORIGIN
Circlet “small” 1528 Circle 1305 French
Islet “small” 1538 Isle 1290 French
Cabinet “small” 1565 Cabin 1400 French
Eaglet “child” 1572 Eagle 1380 French
Maisonette “small” 1818 Maison 1570 French
Cigarette “small” 1842 Cigar 1725 French
Statuette “small” 1843 Statue 1300 French

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 TABLE III. FRENCH LOANS WITH NO EXISTING BASES IN ENGLISH (CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
DERIVATIVE MEANING REGISTER DATE
Pullet “child” 1362
Hatchet “small” 1375
Poppet “small” 1386
Leveret “child” 1400
Cygnet “child” 1430
Coronet “small” 1494
Coquette “female” 1611
Brunette “female” 1713
Grisette “female” 1723
Sachet “small” 1838

TABLE IV. ENGLISH CREATIONS NOT REGISTERED IN THE BNC (CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
DERIVATIVE MEANING REGISTER DATE BASE BASE DATE BASE ORIGIN
Floweret “small” 1400 Flower 1225 French
Freshet “small” 1598 Fresh 1538 French
Muslinette “imitation” 1787 Muslin 1609 French
Dandizette “female” 1821 Dandy 1780 Unknown
Demonette “small” “female” 1854 Demon 1569 Latin
Balconette “small” 1876 Balcony 1618 Italian
BEGOÑA GARCÍA BRAVO 140

Essayette “contempt” 1877 Essay 1597 French

Leaderette “small” “female” 1880 Leader 1837 English
Cashmerette “imitation” 1886 Cashmere 1822 Indian
Plushette “imitation” 1887 Plush 1594 French
Storyette “contempt” 1889 Story 1520 French
Stationette “small” 1893 Station 1797 French
Vanette “small” 1921 Van 1829 English
Brickette “small” 1934 Brick 1440 French
Liette “unimportant” 1993 Lie 900 Germanic
Gothette “female” 2003 Goth 1989 English

TABLE V. FRENCH LOANS NOT REGISTERED IN THE BNC (CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

DERIVATIVE MEANING REGISTER DATE BASE BASE DATE BASE ORIGIN
Bannerette “small” 1300 Banner 1230 French
Mountainette “small” 1586 Mountain 1205 French
Collarette “small” 1690 Collar 1325 French
Baronette “female” 1861 Baron 1200 French

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 were taken from Germanic, Scandinavian, Latin, Indian and Italian respectively.
This fact seems to be another proof that the English language did not only adopt
some French loans ending in “-et/-ette” but it very soon turned this suffix into part
of its inventory of diminutive suffixes.
My analysis of the English words ending in “-et/-ette” has shown that the
semantics of this diminutive suffix is more complex than what has been tradition-
ally believed. I have approached the study of the semantics of the diminutive con-
cept following Jurafsky’s cognitive model (“Universal” 542). He proposes a radial
category in which the different meanings are connected through cognitive mecha-
nisms. The central meanings are both “small” and “child,” which seems to be the
original meaning of the synthetic diminutive in many languages, although there is
no evidence that this also happened in Indo-European languages (“Universals”
425).
Taking into account Jurafsky’s model, I realised that many words which
have been traditionally considered as meaning “small” can better convey a different
meaning. For instance, words such as “owlet” or “hogget” make reference to a younger
animal than its base, so they better express the meaning “child” instead of “small.”
Using the same suffix to convey both “child” and “small” seems to be very frequent
among the languages in the world, as Jurafsky himself affirms: “many languages
lexically mark the young of animals with the diminutive” (“Universals” 427). This
meaning is cognitively related to “affection” through inference because people usu-
ally feel tenderness towards children and young animals.
On the other hand, the meaning “contempt” seems to be more predomi-
nant than “small” in words such as “essayette,” “novelette,” “storyette,” etc. Not
only do these words refer to shorter texts, but they are also considered of lesser

THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”: THE ROLE... 141

quality. See the following example: “The Sun made less use of the News of the World
style of long reports which unfolded the plot of a sex crime in a ‘racy’ style, like a
novelette” (BNC). People usually show disrespect for the texts that these words
refer to, which is even more noticeable in the following instance of “sermonette”:
“In 1980, when I told my doctor I was leaving my day job to work wire full time, he
gave me a sermonette about the evils of carpal tunnel inflammation” (<http://www.
wirelady.com/berrienwiresafetypage.html>).
There are many cases in which the meaning “small” does not indicate a
reduction in size but in importance, which can also be explained cognitively. The
clearest instances of “unimportant” are “flingette” and “fibette.” Despite appearing
both in the BNC, the searches on the Internet have revealed a very curious use of
premodification which serves as an emphasis for the lack of importance: “Just a
tiny, teeny, miniscule little fibette, just so that we filled up a tiny amount more
space” (<http://www.mandiapple.com/mavisdream/livedr4.htm>).5

5
The analytic diminutive is also part of my research on this topic, but for space reasons not
part of the present paper.

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 Creations like “liette” in the example “It was a little white fib, or ‘fibette’, as
he sometimes called them (or ‘fi’, or ‘liette’, or ‘sidetruth’... a friend once joked ‘you
have more words for a lie than the eskimos have for snow’” (<http://www.idler.co.uk/
archives/?page_id=132>) are the result of spontaneity, which makes clear that Eng-
lish speakers have internalised the meanings of this suffix. Therefore, there is enough
evidence to affirm that “-et/-ette” is completely alive in the English language.
The productivity of this suffix becomes stronger in relation to its behaviour
with the meaning ‘female’. Contrary to some authors’ opinions (Quirk et al. 1549;
Schneider 96; Peters s.v.) English speakers do use the suffix “-et/-ette” with the
meaning “female” quite frequently. Several new words I have discovered in my
research turn their bases into feminine referents. Such a meaning has always played
a very important role in English, even contributing to its strengthening in the French
language through the use of “suffragette” or “majorette,” as I have said in previous
pages. These words originated in English and were taken as loans into French at the
beginning and half of the 20th century respectively with exactly the same meaning
they have in the English language (Dubois s.v.).
On the one hand, I have found out some derivatives in “-et/-ette” of very
recent creation which only convey the meaning “female.” Such is the case of
“gothette,” which appears neither in the BNC, the OED nor in jargon dictionaries,
such as Tulloch’s The Oxford Dictionary of New Words. Its “female” meaning is more
than evident in an example as “Meeting Place For Those Goth Boyz And Goth
Lordz Who Adore These Unique Gothette Girrls And Mistresses & The Darkish
Abyss World They Inhabit!” (<http://gothettevampyria.tribe.net/>), taken from a
webpage created in the year 2003.
On the other hand, there are some other words that can convey both “un-
BEGOÑA GARCÍA BRAVO 142

important” and “female” or “small” and “female,” such as “flingette” and “leaderette”
respectively. However, both of them seem to be specialising their meaning to the
second one. “Flingette” can indicate both “an unimportant fling” and “the woman
with whom somebody commits infidelity” (my own definitions). Take the follow-
ing example:

It started with 30somethings’s ex-flingette posting a video on the net. No, not that
type of video. it was shot by her g/f and it was about her search for a decent gym in
her home town [...] Anyway, I then went upstairs in our house to find ex-flingette
in our spare room, still snivelling whilst telling me that she has now developed a
large crush on me (<http://whatwoulddanado.blogspot.com/2005/12/these-dreams-
go-on-when-i-close-my-ey.html>).

While “flingette” still seems to express both meanings, other words may
have already got specialised into “female.” For instance, “demonette” is defined by
the OED as “a little demon” but I have not found any example either in the BNC or
on the Internet with such a meaning. On the contrary, there are quite many in-
stances in which “female” becomes apparent:

While Jim and Rick continued their discussion, a mousy (literally) female demon
carrying a clipboard approached them. ‘Okay, right. You two are Jim and Rick,

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 correct?’ ‘That’s right,’ said Jim. ‘Are you our punishment?’ The demonette gave
him a cold stare (<http://www.bearchive.com/~addventure/game1/docs/118/
118987.html>).

The most remarkable change has taken place in the derivative “leaderette”
because, not only has it turned into indicating two different meanings, but it has
also taken the base “leader” with different senses. On the one hand, the OED de-
fines it as “A short editorial paragraph, printed in the same type as the ‘leaders’ in a
newspaper,” so its base “leader” refers to a type of paragraph. On the other hand,
examples found on the net have revealed its use as a feminine word:

Centerville Church of Christ has been involved with the Lads to Leaders program
since 1987. Lads to Leaders & Leaderettes has a proven methodology for develop-
ing young people into leaders” (<http://www.centervillechurchofchrist.org/
leader_leaderette.htm>).

The derivative in this case has taken the base “leader” with the meaning
“one who leads” (OED), turning it into a feminine referent. Although there are
some examples in which certain contempt seems to accompany the feminine de-
rivative, cases such as this one seem to respond women’s need to become visible.

4. CONCLUSIONS

My research has shown that the diminutive suffix “-et/-ette” is productive

THE DIMINUTIVE SUFFIX “-ET/-ETTE”: THE ROLE... 143

in the English language since it has been used to form new derivatives from the
14th century to the current 21st century. Contrary to the traditional belief that
English diminutives cannot express as many values as other languages, such as the
romance ones, my analysis has proved that only this suffix is able to express at least
six meanings: “child,” “contempt,” “unimportant,” “small,” “female” and “imita-
tion,” all of them connected through cognitive mechanisms. The meaning “female”
has recently become very important and has given place to singular changes in
some words, such as “flingette,” “demonette” and “leaderette.” Far from being ob-
solete, “female” seems to be more alive than ever. The appearance of words like the
previously mentioned and “gothette” may be explained as women’s wish to be ac-
knowledged both in the world and in the language.
Although its diminutive nature has never been denied, there are no system-
atic works about the suffix “-et/-ette,” so a first serious research on specific English
diminutive constructions was needed. Besides, none of the few studies on the Eng-
lish diminutive has made use of electronic corpora to draw its data, not even the
latest research, as Schneider himself admits: “So far, large electronic corpora have
not been used in diminutive research to any significant extent” (70). Therefore, the
use of the BNC as my tool for analysis both to draw up the list of words ending in
“-et/-ette” and to check their existence in the English language is a further step on
the linguistic research on the diminutive.

09 Miscellany GARCÍA BRAVO.pmd 143 06/05/2009, 9:45

 Apart from the BNC, it has been essential to use other resources such as
dictionaries, grammars and, especially, the Internet in order to cover the deficien-
cies that the corpus presents. Dictionaries such as Muthmann’s have been very use-
ful to draw up the list of words, while the Internet has played a relevant role in the
verification of their use in English.
Unquestionably, the Internet has been a very important source in which
the existence of certain words in the English language has been stated. Searches on
the net have enriched my study in a very remarkable way and my findings on words
such as “gothette,” “leaderette,” “flingette” and “demonette” would not have been
possible if I had restricted my corpus to the BNC. The Internet opens a wide world
of possibilities for research in any scientific field and even wider in linguistics. Blogs,
chat rooms and personal websites mean an unlimited source of data for linguistic
research. Examples taken from the Internet present typical features of spoken lan-
guage, a factor that has been very helpful for my analysis since diminutives seem to
be more frequent in daily speech. People are increasingly communicating through
this means and linguists should consider its value as an intermediate field between
the written and the oral language.

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