Pingle. Om eit nyord i norsk

Resumé

This artielc prescnts a discussion of semantie and pragmatic aspccts of one specific neologism in
Norwegian, the word ping/e. The discussion is based on written sources such as dictionarics, fiction,
cleetronie text eorpora, cspccially Atekst and Helmer, and Google, as well as c-maiis and othcr forms of
communication rcceived aftcr two national radio programmcs fcaturing the word. On the basis of thcsc
sourccs it sccms rcasonablc to concludc that ping/e is a genuine Norwegian ncologism which camc in to
cxistcncc in the l 980s, cspccially in informal spccch among adolcsccnts and within the Armcd Forccs and
the arca of sport. It is howcvcr unclcar how this word was ercatcd. Thcrc are no indications that it was
borrowcd from other Scandinavian languages or from English. The article argucs that the word fonn
ping/e in itsclf has somc structural charactcristics rclating to phonology and semantics. According to the
norms of Norwegian, thcse charactcristics restrict how a word form as ping/e is to be undcrstood. The
articlc furthcr points out some sociolinguistic and discursive aspects to which the phenomcnon of ping/e
is rclatcd.