Writing Tools

Writers introduce new words into the language all the time. These are called neologisms and occur by creative mistakes -- and by design.

Photo courtesy of Roy Peter Clark Maggie Jacobson

Last Sunday, for example, my wife and I were riding to the bagel shop with the vivacious Maggie Jacobson, who is six years old and in the first grade. Maggie is the kind of girl who likes to color outside the lines, so it came as no surprise when she refused to settle for the existing number of ordinary words in the English language. During an animated description of something very, very big, she used the word "ginormous."  It was bigger than gigantic.  It was huger than enormous. It was ginormous.

Because I'm not anywhere near as cool as Maggie, or her older sister Molly, or Molly's friend Geena, I thought Maggie had coined the word. To my surprise, I found it defined and used in several contexts online.

Many neologisms blend existing words. On his cool Web site, wordspy.com, Paul McFedries offers clever examples including netois: the patois of the net; multidude: a bunch of surfers; and slackademic: someone who won't leave school. He includes anecdotage, which stands for boring stories from old people. Not long ago, I coined the word anecdotty, for writers who overuse anecdotes.

Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees is not a gazillionaire, but a godzillionaire, because of his fame, his hitting prowess, his nickname (Godzilla), and his national origin (Japan).

Lot of clever word blends came from "Wanted Words," a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation competition in which listeners created neologisms for nameless phenomena. You'll find more in the novel "A Clockwork Orange," in which author Anthony Burgess creates a brand-new teenage slang to reflect the alienation of the young in his future dystopia.

Of course, you don't need a new word in order to achieve originality in language. In fact, here's what makes a neologism effective: It's a rare spice, so it adds a surprising flavor.

Let me extend my gratitude and a ginormous ice cream cone to Maggie -- and Molly and Geena -- for their contribution to this blog. (Hey, blog is a blended word, too!)

Any readers want to claim coinage of a new word?  Speak now...