Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun <i>Pelud</i>

Šćuric, Dejana

doi:10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, Vol. 51 No. 1, 2025.

Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud

Dejana Šćuric ; Bjelovar

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cite

APA 6th Edition

Šćuric, D. (2025). Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud. Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, 51 (1). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

MLA 8th Edition

Šćuric, Dejana. "Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud." Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, vol. 51, no. 1, 2025 https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8. Accessed 23 Jul. 2026.

Chicago 17th Edition

Šćuric, Dejana. "Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud." Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik 51, no. 1 https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

Harvard

Šćuric, D. (2025). 'Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud', Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, 51(1). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

Vancouver

Šćuric D. Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud. Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik [Internet]. 2025 [cited 2026 July 23];51(1). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

IEEE

D. Šćuric, "Grains of Thought on Pollen: A New View on the Authorship, Origin and Gender of the Noun Pelud", Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, vol.51, no. 1, 2025. [Online]. https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.8

Abstract

This paper questions the prevailing views regarding the noun pelud, namely that it was coined by Bogoslav Šulek based on the Czech word pel, and that he considered it a feminine noun. The presented evidence shows that another linguist used the word pelud several years before Šulek, which questions its (alleged) Czech origin. Nevertheless, Šulek’s contribution to introducing the word pelud into the Croatian standard language remains indisputable, and his usage strongly influenced the grammatical gender in which the noun spread. The central part of the paper presents the results of a corpus analysis of the use of the noun pelud in Šulek’s printed works, focusing on its distribution by grammatical gender and declension type. A quantitative method was used in the analysis to obtain precise data on the author’s actual usage, allowing for more objective conclusions than those based solely on selective data, primarily dictionary entries. The results, among other insights, highlight the need for caution when forming conclusions based only on lexicographical sources and underscore the value of corpus analysis in linguistic research.