The WORD processor

The true WORD processor is history. Just look at this table from a site about how words change over time.

The historical influence of various languages in names of places and their derivations for the British Isles.
     

Source	Language	Meaning	Modern Forms
ac	Anglo-Saxon	oak	Ac-, Oak-, -ock
baile	Gaelic	farm, village	Bally-, Bal-
bearu	Anglo-Saxon	grove, wood	Barrow-, -ber
beorg	Anglo-Saxon	burial mound	Bar-, -borough
brycg	Anglo-Saxon	bridge	Brig-, -bridge
burh	Anglo-Saxon	fortified place	Bur-, -bury
burna	Anglo-Saxon	stream, spring	Bourn-, -burn(e)
by	Old Norse	farm, village	-by
caer	Welsh	fortified place	Car-
ceaster	Latin	fort, Roman town	Chester-, -caster
cot	Anglo-Saxon	shelter, cottage	-cot(e)
cwm	Welsh	deep valley	-combe
daire	Gaelic	oak wood	-dare, -derry
dalr	Old Norse	valley	Dal-, -dale
denn	Anglo-Saxon	swine pasture	-dean, -den
dun	Anglo-Saxon	hill, down	Dun-, -down, -ton
ea	Anglo-Saxon	water, river	Ya-, Ea-, -ey
eg	Anglo-Saxon	island	Ey-
ey	Old Norse	island	-ey, -ay
gleann	Gaelic	narrow valley	Glen-
graf	Anglo-Saxon	grove	-grave, -grove
ham	Anglo-Saxon	homestead, village	Ham-, -ham
hyrst	Anglo-Saxon	wooded hill	Hurst-, -hirst
-ing	Anglo-Saxon	place of ...	-ing
leah	Anglo-Saxon	glade, clearing	Leigh-, Lee-, -ley
loch	Gaelic	lake	Loch-, -loch
mere	Anglo-Saxon	lake, pool	Mer-, Mar-, -mere, more
nes	Old Norse	cape	-ness
pwll	Welsh	anchorage, pool	-pool
rhos	Welsh	moorland	Ros(s)-, -rose
stan	Anglo-Saxon	stone	Stan-, -stone
stede	Anglo-Saxon	place, site	-ste(a)d
stoc	Anglo-Saxon	meeting place	Stoke-, -stock
stow	Anglo-Saxon	meeting place	Stow-, -stow(e)
straet	Latin	Roman road	Strat-, Stret-, -street
tun	Anglo-Saxon	enclosure, village	Ton-, -town, -ton
thorp	Old Norse	farm, village	Thorp-, -thorp(e)
thveit	Old Norse	glade, clearing	-thwaite
wic	Anglo-Saxon	dwelling, farm	-wick, -wich

                                      Source: http://www.krysstal.com/wordname.html

Now this is really WORD PROCESSING, not just writing through the means of a software application, but adding instant history to the form and sound of the word, moving it backward or forward, or even sideways in an unknown turn or direction: a real turn of expression. Whether historically accurate or not, the point is that it shows not only how a language carries resources from other languages, but also how very common words and names have evolved from unfamiliar forms whose significance we wouldn't have guessed automatically. The items "brycg" or "pwll"  or "cwm" would appear senseless now, but had some meaning before. Meanings are as relative and temporary as the forms that are used to point to them. One example mentioned among many is the word silly.

“The word silly has over many centuries taken a fascinating journey through a range of evolving meanings. Silly did not originally refer to the absurd or ridiculous – in fact quite the opposite. The word derives from the old English word seely, meaning happy, blissful, lucky or blessed. From there it came to mean innocent, or deserving of compassion, only later mutating this sense of naive childishness into a more critical, mocking term, signifying ignorance, feeble-mindedness, and foolish behaviour - the meaning we know today” (http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/dic/oed/silly/silly.html).

The table above are instances of what has been called metaplasm, or "a change in the orthography (and hence phonology) of a word" (Wikipedia). The Greek origin is metaplasso or “to mold differently, remodel,” referring to formal changes that include processes of addition, omission, inversion, and substitution. This is a whole set of rhetorical figures!

Concerning phonetic changes, we can just mention one famous case in the history of English called "The Great Vowel Shift."

The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1700. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....

This means that the vowel in the English word same was in Middle English pronounced [aː] (similar to modern psalm); the vowel in feet was [eː] (similar to modern fate); the vowel in wipe was [iː] (similar to modern weep); the vowel in boot was [oː] (similar to modern boat); and the vowel in mouse was [uː] (similar to modern moose).

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift)

These metaplasmic processes are well recognized.

"Sound change is unstoppable: All languages vary from place to place and time to time, and neither writing nor media prevent this change."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change)

Another way languages change is through the addition of new "content" like neologisms. There are a number of well-known ways a new word is created in a language (nonces, portmanteau, acronyms), but the important question I want to raise is if it is possible for language to reproduce all the sounds in the universe, or all the possible meanings in the universe. It is probably a "silly" question to ask, but we know that "nonverbal" arts like music or dance or painting or other media have always been used to speak about domains which language may not have the capacity to reproduce.

If any verbal attempt is done in this direction, many things can happen, including the risk of falling into senseless and even asemic forms. That is, language fantasies that we can all lump into a neologism or metaplasm of some sort. I am thinking of elements of Finnegan's Wake or Carroll's "Jabberwocky," or Hugo Ball and Schwitters' sound poetry, or even some pieces by Artaud. Definitely it will be a toss between metaplasm and neologism in many cases, and it will become harder and harder to separate them, except for the fact that neologisms can attain a "legitimate" current status, which current metaplasms may never get. Metaplasms usually appear in the dictionary only as historical or literary curiosities and not as currently spoken words. Not all metaplasms are created equal.

While we can say that language is incomplete in relation to what the whole of existence could offer, we may well be content with pointing out the evidence for this discrepancy by the use of neologisms (quarks, leptons, laser, etc.) or metaplasm. And whereas the former obtains lexical legitimacy by some kind of epistemic or realistic or poetic status, the latter may remain either as an echo of a search of lost meanings or as bastard forms and meanings that may or may not come. In addition, metaplasms present processes, accidental or not, that are not just formal but also material in nature. From the Buddhist AUM to the proto-languages to languages and on to sub-languages down to individual speakers and "accidents," metaplasms enact the shifts from form to form and sound to sound, laying out a whole spectrum of legitimate and intermediate, legible and illegible, or meaningful and meaningless linguistic artifacts.

The case of onomatopoeia is interesting also in this regard. I look at onomatopoeia as a kind of multimedia in lexical format. If mimicry or imitation is the absolute goal of onomatopoeia, then we can consider whole books or volumes of books to be onomatopoeic in the way they all try to represent something, even the whole world, in all its aspect. In a fictional scenario, this would mean that the best copy of the world is another world, only smaller and accessible, or manipulable, or portable, and holding no secrets. This reminds me of the "Aleph" in one of Borges' stories.

At any rate, I like the idea that in Greek, onomatopoeia actually means "making or creating names." That is WORD PROCESSING in a nutshell.