679: -nik Oct 17, 2016

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It isn't uncommon, especially from an English-speaking perspective, to come across words borrowed from other languages for a multitude of reasons. Less common, perhaps, is to find affixes that are borrowed from other languages directly, though it does still happen. The suffix '-nik' was used quite commonly in the 1950's for different nicknames for satellites and other crafts shot off into space. Also from the same word, it became applied to other words which meant someone who was associated with a particular thing, giving us 'beatnik' and other words as well.

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