Comments on: Sometimes, The Right Word is a Fake One

By: Joey

Joey — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:17:00 +0000

You absolutely cannot have a conversation on made up words and not include Lewis Carroll; Slithy, mimsy, manxome? All gold, maybe not as commonly used as some of Shakespeare’s, but still….

By: A

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:34:09 +0000

I recently learned that Shakespeare actually made up words a lot. Back in the ye olds, people were generally more responsive to auditory stimuli, rather than visual stimuli as we are so overwhelmingly attuned to now, so Shakespeare’s original words were delicious ear candy for spectators.

Moving along to my favourite non-words:
I have to thank The Simpsons every day for giving me “craptastic” and “meh.” Aside from those gems, something that I do frequently is add “able” to the ends of many words, regardless of whether or not this forms a true word.

By: SusanaMai

SusanaMai — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:08:42 +0000

well, hasn’t A Clockwork Orange proven the value of the made-up word? Burgess wielded his linguistic sword and derived some perfect ones:

britva: knife
droogs: gangmembers
horrorshow: cool

By: Therese

Therese — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:03:17 +0000

I invented the word “immatrimonial” for a humor piece I wrote (http://www.ducts.org/content/smug-married-advice-to-the-single/), meaning not marriage-ish. I was really proud of myself for following the rules of Latinate prefixes (in + word that starts with “m” = imm…)

By: Tanya Paperny

Tanya Paperny — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:37:04 +0000

Womp, womp, womp (a lá http://www.sadtrombone.com)

Jew-isch (my friends who aren’t Jews but have the Jewish humor down pat so they might as well be Jews)

Sproing! (as in a lol cat jumping)

By: Estefania

Estefania — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:04:53 +0000

Badacious!

By: ali

ali — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:06:19 +0000

LOL I had to stretch way back in my memory to connect your words to 30 Rock. Haven’t thought of that show FOR.EVER.

My fave fake words? Hmm. I use the old words like JK listed, also I use Jingle Bells in the place of swearing all year long, lol. Crap weasel, I can’t think of any others. Soon as I move on from here I’ll remember a ton.

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:06:21 +0000

I’m a big fan of the Colbert book of silly words. Truthieness all the way.

meep, blergh, womp and noms are also favorites.

By: JK Evanczuk

JK Evanczuk — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:58:02 +0000

LLAMA is a shorthand for “love of my life.” It’s not an acronym, but it’s close enough. There’s two l’s in there, and an ‘m.’

I really enjoy old-timey slang. Dagnabbit, hooligan, tomfoolery, malarky, etc, all at the top of my list.