Neologotastic!
If there were one language shibboleth I could suspend with a wave of my magic wand, it would be the senseless prohibition against creating new words. I’d take the neologizing habit out of the jokey confines of the Washington Post Style Invitational, wrest it away from Stephen Colbert, and put it into wider circulation. “But that’s not a real word!” would nevermore be heard.
Even those who trumpet the virtues of modern architecture and lumpy black avant-garde clothing will criticize any word their grandfathers didn’t know as “ugly” or “appalling,” refusing to recognize that in language as in art, the unappealing is often necessary to generate the appropriate effect.
People who don’t hesitate to create new things in other media — who happily design their own fonts and mix their own colors — shy away from coining new words, with an almost reverent attitude towards the existing language. But words are human, and were made by human creativity.
So don’t dismiss making new words as an a-priori Bad Idea. Give it a shot. Not all your new words will survive, but neither do all your new ideas! If we all try, coining new words could be, for lack of a better word, neologotastic.
Erin McKean is Chief Consulting Editor, American Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, editor of Verbatim, and author of multiple blogs and books. Justin Gabbard is an illustrator who lives, works and one day hopes to be able to afford to eat in Manhattan.
Remarks 32 total remarks were added before the post was closed.
Tor Løvskogen
Fabulastic.
henry soon
for the longest time, I have always thought "jibabom" was a word in some foreign language for the noise that came an explosion.
turns out it was just something out of childhood that gave voice to the really fun activitiy of pretend-blowing up of toys for fun:)
Michael Chui
Beautifully said. Still, new words have to be described and defined by old words; otherwise, we couldn't grasp what they mean. Do you grok?
uv
Grant Barrett
Oh, God. I love new words. Really. But I love them when they're not supposedly funny—but really unfunny—blends that people send me by the bucketfuls. They send them out in mad batches, gleefully, with the upbeat tone of a toddler who just made a poo-poo in the potty for the first time, and they expect me to rush their genius to the front of the line for entrance in "The Dictionary." Truth is, most new words suck big green donkey balls and deserve to die.
Where are the GOOD new words? Right there next to the GOOD fantasy fiction? And the GOOD income tax?
You're making my work harder, McKean. There will be an accounting!
Peter Holloway
I like that, thanks.
Peter Holloway
Information Technolgoist
Nick Husher
The gamer community creates (or at least used to, before they were overrun by lobotomized angry fratboy console gamers who play Halo3 compulsively*) new words all the time. Usually they're extensions or mutations of old words. The most notable example of this is woot, which is an exclamation of exuberance that cannot be used sarcastically.
[ * But I'm not bitter or anything ]
Joshua Works
My case against coining new words is that there exists, almost without fail, already the perfect word for your use, artistic or otherwise, and the rational need for the new word simply falls flat; i.e. "new words" often stem directly from an ignorance of the language, and they threaten only to further undermine and devalue our language, spiraling effortlessly towards a language like that depicted in "Idiocracy".
So it goes: let me cross these two simplistic words and spit out my very own portmanteau fit for barrooms and brothels; or let me tack on this suffix to the only word I know of the concept, and directly imply my laziness.
Obviously languages evolve, and with new technology, scientific and cultural concepts, and a better understanding of our past, new words *will* have to be invented. But save us if blog, muffintop, metrosexual, and crunk is what my generation has to contribute to the lexicon. (Not to mention the annoying habit of intentionally misspelling words as a Web 2.0 "marketing" concept).
Joshua Works
Just to briefly hone my point: the wrong tool (in this case, the chisel that shapes our lexicographic landscape) in unskilled hands will inevitably lead to ineffective work. It doesn't follow that the tool be destroyed -- just used with caution.
Tim
Speaking of words, the definition of Shibboleth doesn't seem to fit with the way the author used it here.
"a manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people"
Unless the prohibition against creating new words as an idea is expressed verbally in some way that makes a characteristic of the speaker apparent to the listeners.
Or did I miss something. A little help here?
TheUprock.com
I'm with Joshua Works on this topic. Good random thought though.
Lisa
Don't forget anthrologizing -- old words that are better than or more fun than existing words.
My favorite is "to grex", complaining in an especially whiny fashion. Adj: grexy.
This onomatopoetic word comes from the old German, and is in the OED. It was used in my home when I was growing up. I always thought it was a made-up word until I accidentally found it one day in the OED while looking up an adjacent word.
Matt
scrumtralescent
Fred
The only problem with what Joshua Works says is that it's likely what every generation has said: "Language can evolve, but don't let it evolve *that* way!" ("And, while you're at it, you kids get off my lawn!")
If a better word already exists, it's only because somebody in an earlier generation coined it, ignoring that advice. The creation of new words, many of them just plain dreadful, does not necessarily mean the accompanying death of old words. Or even that the new words will survive. If you're going to allow for the evolution of language, I think you have to accept that it's an organic, often chaotic, always imperfect evolution.
It's great that there are people who care about language, about words and their use or abuse. But there isn't, nor should there be, some kind of all-knowing, cautious, elite body through which all new words must be vetted.
Eric Meyer
"The most notable example of this is woot, which is an exclamation of exuberance that cannot be used sarcastically."
Oh yes it can. And often is, at least in my social circle.
Michael McWatters
Nok lo fandasmo. Forp flimba dosh vorkinator.
Sto seebo bwah koh-poopu. Zalistem? Sovanta!
Crok vandermickel.
Gustaf Eriksson
I'm more interested in obsolete words. My personal favourite is slockster, which means "a person who lures away another's servant". I'm still anxiously awaiting an opportunity to slip it into a conversation in a natural way.
Joe
Every time I read the word digitivity I get the uncontrollable urge to vomit all over my cubicle.
I work for a large interactive agency that will remain unnamed. Recently the made up word digitiviy has been thrown around, as if being creative in online is somehow different from any other way of being creative.
Yes both instances of that word should have the red squiggly lines under them.
Tom Dolan
Usually used derisively my shop throws out automatically at clients, even tho we'd rather often not.
Tom Dolan
Foiled by my iPhone spell correction! Make that "automagically" sorry.
lisa
I was amused by the guy who has written about the emerging coherent grammar of cheezeburger-speak; David Sedaris meets too-cute cat pix caps.
Guillaume
As someone who speaks three languages (French, Dutch and English); I more often find myself quoting another language (usually English) than inventing or using a new word. Each language doesn't have a word for everything. I often try to find a translation for the word I had to find in another language, often only to fail.
Which means the great thing about knowing multiple languages, and making up new words, is that they broaden our sense of understanding of the world, they enable us to wrap our head around specific nuances, or new concepts or emotions.
On the other hand, I like the constrain of proper language. It encourages creativity, research and curiosity, whereas abusive usage of new words can lead to a certain lack of perspective.
Stephen Caver
The power of modifying a language does not hold with the coiners of words. That, I'm quite sure, is not in short supply. The real power, where ordinary people wield their strength in the development of language, is in the organic regulation of language. To choose to use or not use a word is far more powerful and long-lasting than coining a new one. And this is a power that the people have.
Dinu
How about text messaging language?
It 1n b lng b4 it getz accpted.
I created a new word recently, for a web gallery: Webrsque - meaning picturesque web.
David Mohrman
Does any one remember Rich Hall's Sniglets?
Most of the words coined were throwaway nonsense but some were brilliant. Like "Flopcorn" - the enevitable unpopped kernals whenever popcorn is made.
Here's some I've come up with:
Nonvelope:
That one-piece invoice/order form and "envelope" which the invoice/form won't fit into unless it's folded in some unintuitive way.
Bic-kleptic:
Someone who unconsciously steals your disposable pen or lighter after briefly borrowing it.
Nap-kleptic:
Someone who compulsively grabs way more paper napkins from a restaurant dispenser than they could possibly need for their meal. One who keeps an excessive supply of restaurant dispenser napkins.
Unbrella:
What your umbrella becomes when inverted by the wind or when broken.
What're yours?
Kris
Throughout = throught. Spread it!
Bob Hambly
I came up with a name for that awkward moment when you find yourself walking in the path of an oncoming pedestrian and the two of you start to simultaneously change your paths and for a short time you both waddle back and forth in unison.
I call it the Avoy dance!
iamkeir
Wow, I thought it was just me and my friends extending vocabulary with such feverent creativity. Here are two offerings:
'Ego-bloat' - Term used to describe the use of overly-elaborate language and excessive wording usually due to the exercising of an inflated ego. It often results in documents of 25 pages when 3 would do, or 414 sentences when silence would do. Very common in the corporate environment. E.g. "This document is riddled with ego-bloat"
Also there seems to be plenty of (often vulgar) words to describe male arousal, but none for the female that I am aware of (sorry to lower the tone but it's a good'un) so...
'Labiation/labiating/labiated/to labiate' - Word to describe the process of female arousal. E.g. "When that dude walks in a room, all the women just start labiating"
P.S. I love David Mohrman's offerings!
Greg K Nicholson
This is a good way to complete crosswords.
My friends and I coined the word snulf in such an effort: it means a sign or sense of impending doom, or an illness or condition likely (or feared) to cause one's demise.
To be encumbered with the snulf is to be ensnulfed.
Doug L.
Check out Calvin's related comment --
Or this one that I heard (someone mispronouncing "escarpment") -- that I defined for my Dictionary of MTB Slang:
enscarfment n. a food break at the edge of a cliff.
Kevin
I think making up new words is perfectly cromulant. I'm a big fan of verbing nouns.