I am TERRIBLE with grammar. And, I can’t find a good reason for it since I am a college educated individual who reads regularly. Still, I’ll be dammed if I use the semi-colon properly without having to look it up, or write a sentence that is free of the dreaded comma splice. So, in order to compensate for my linguistic shortcomings, I make up words and pawn them off as my sense of humor. But, I’m not the only one! In my wanderings around the internet I’ve noticed other people make up words, too! Although, I suspect these other made up words are the result of brilliance rather than grammatical misfortune. My friend Becky is pretty brilliant and she can conjure up some exquisite made-up words and phrases (I’d best not repeat some of them here). I love talking “new word” with her. Speaking of exquisite, recycling words is cool, too. Bringing back old slang or throwing different words into new contexts (and pawning them off as humor) is totally bitchin’. I highly recommend it. That way, if you mess up, you can just say “Yo! It was totally just my sense of humor… pffft” or something like that.
Here are a few of my favorite made-up words:
- Journicle– [jurn-ə-kuhl] -noun:A cheap combination of journal + article. I read a lot of journal articles in college and apparently it caused a bunch of words and ideas to slosh around in my head and come out in grammatically different ways.
- Callipyjeans – [kal-uh-pij-ee-nz] – noun:Combination of callipygian + jeans. callipygian: adj, having shapely buttocks. So, callipyjeans are a dream pair of jeans that create the appearance of having shapely buttocks…and I am ALWAYS in pursuit of having shapely buttocks!
- Successify – [sək-sés-ï-fy] – verb: To incorporate the elements of success. Dave, from Blog of Funny Names shared the link this blog in the comment section of one of my posts. Its called successify, and its pretty awesome. I wonder if inspiration for this word was influenced by George W?
- Marvy – [mahrv-ee] – adj: A diminutive form of marvelous, meaning superb; excellent; great.
- Eloquacious – [e-loh-kwey-shuhs] – adj: “eloquent” and “loquacious”, specifically meaning: “the ability to create brand new words, that sound as if they’ve always, truly existed, and mean exactly what you think they would”. This one came from www.jasperfforde.com. Peep it!
If you have any favorite made-up or recycled words, put’em in the comments! Word.
This post is marvy! I am now on a mission to create a new word today. I will let you know how this turns out. How about wordledge, combination of word and knowledge showing your superior master of language. You have quite a bit of wordledge there!
Mission complete. Thanks for the fun. 🙂
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Yay! Thank you Jonathan! Wordledge is one awesomely made up word!! 😀
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I need a pair of callipyjeans! No, more than a pair. How can you have too many callipyjeans?
Amy, you really that the most eloquacious person I know 🙂
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I know! I, too, would like to have multiple pairs of callipyjeans. Thank you for the nice comment, because you are one of my FAVORITE writers and one of the most eloquacious people I know!! 🙂
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Amy, that is SO sweet! Thank you, you’ve made my day! Know that you are one of my favorites! And I love our hyper scrutinized high fives 😀
*hyper-scrutinized high five*
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This post is fantabulous. I think that says it all. Always love your posts!
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Thank you, Amy! Fantabulous is totally….fantabulous! 😀 Always love your posts as well!
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I love your Mahvy post, dahling!(Greta Garbo or Mae West accent). I’ll be thinking of some superiffic (super terrific) words for your collection!
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I love your Greta Garbo or May West accent. That accent goes nicely with superiffic! 😀
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I can’t spell or use grammar… but I dropped out of high school in 1977… so…
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Well then, that just goes to show ya that you don’t need college to be a good writer! 🙂
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I never thought of it that way… thanks.
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Excellent. I love it! And don’t worry if you don’t know how to use punctuation correctly. All the best writers break all the rules, anyway. 😉
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Thanks Jessica! That does make me feel better about my disorganized encounters with the semicolon 🙂
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You are so funny. 🙂 I swear, I feel like sometimes you take ideas right out of my head! I think you just have an innate ability (I like using the word “innate”, by the way- it makes me feel super smart) to put your thumb on the pulse of the masses and vocalize what we’re all thinking. I feel the same way! I remember taking ENG COMP 101 & 102, and my professor was a serious grammar Nazi. We had to follow the 20 formal writing rules without fail, and never (EVER) write in first person. If we deviated even in the slightest and broke a rule? He docked us points every time. It was really easy to fail that class, as you might imagine. I was frikking traumatized..haha….but- I made an A in both classes. (But man did I have to work for those A’s! He made me realize that only bad people select APA over MLA format. Yeah. Traumatized.) Even after all of that training, I still abuse my commas and fake my way through semicolon and colon exchanges (you mean, they’re NOT interchangeable?! heheh..) but hey, if various professors following my ENG COMP instructor can’t tell the difference? It’s all good to me. 😉
I like eloquacious the best.
I’m so going to use that. 🙂
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Wow. I feel like YOU have an innate ability to write the most beautiful and encouraging comments, ever! Your comments always make my day!!! Seriously.
I understand what you mean about having being traumatized by English classes! But, I’m not at all surprised that you made those A’s. It’s pretty apparent that you are an incredibly intelligent and prolific artist and writer 🙂
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I was thinking of you yesterday, and was thinking about SNL. They used to have some really funny stuff on there, you know? (I’m pretty sure the coke has gotten to most of them. They’re just…not as funny anymore.) And then I thought of you. 🙂 I can claim to be a “writer” all I want, but I think I’ve been so damaged by men that I just whine half the time…haha. You, on the other hand, have honed your craft and you really should consider screenwriting, Amy. I am not blowing smoke here. I haven’t seen anyone with your talent as a writer- ever, simply “by happenstance” online. (And again, 98% of all of my friends are writers, sculptors, painters, artsits, etc. and I’ve read a lot of writings over the years.) You’re freaking funny! Not just funny, but a WRITER. Think of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. They submitted “Good Will Hunting” after writing it on a whim, just because it filled their time and they were passionate about it. You’ve got everything it takes to be getting paid BANK for your writing talent. Please consider this. (Screenwriters make $20,000 per script, and those are their crap scripts!) Something to think about. 😉
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p.s.
If you ever DO become a “famous writer” accompanied by a Hollywood paycheck, I want an 8 % contingency fee, ok?
K!
heheh…
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HAhaaa. Oh for sure!!
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OH MY GOSH monochrome! I am blown away by your faith in me. Thank you so much for believing in me so much. It means the world to me to have someone believe in me like that 🙂
Its funny that you mentioned SNL because when I was a kid, my dream was to be a writer for SNL…I memorized all of Eddie Murphey’s sketches…I still know all of them by heart 😛 But, when I was a kid, I lived in Wyoming, and entertaining the possibility of doing something like that seemed too far fetched for me to even try.
It is definitely something I would love to do! But somehow, I have to figure out how to overcome all the self doubt and fear that lives in my head. There is a TON of it!
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I use made up words all the time, we especially like to use them with our local grocery stores. Albertscums(Albertsons), Slaveaway(Safeway), Kameapart(Kmart of course), Walfart, etc. If you think of a store we will have a made up word for it.
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BHAhahaaa!! Slaveaway and Walfart! Genius! I hope you don’t mind if I borrow those? 🙂
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You can have them. You can also come up with ones in your local area that I don’t know of..
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“Abusement” is a word my father likes to refer to when I taunt their dogs with my mom’s BBQ sometimes for my amusement.
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Oh my gosh. That is awesome! I love it! Thank you for sharing it! I always love what you have to say!
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Marvy has always been a favorite of mine. I also really love “fakakta”, but it’s not as nice…
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HAhaa! I had to look up “fakakta” before I responded, and I found it and love it, too! It also made me wonder about the rules of our language…if made up words are used and understood just as much as “real” words, then doesn’t that make them “real” words?
Oh no. I just got all Pinnochio on the word thing! 😀 Thank you for sharing your words 🙂
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I used to think made up wasn’t real. I changed my mind. Writers should be able to create like that. Besides, marvy is just marvy!
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One of my felllow bellmen claims to have invented the term “swamp donkey”.
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Swamp donkey? Hahaa! I’m going to see if I can find that. I can only imagine what it means… 😀
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Nice one! I like the marvy and successify 🙂
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My personal favorite is “vocabularious”, referring to people who make up words and use them as if they’re real, especially for comedic purposes. Looks like it’s related to “eloquacious”.
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I’m TERRIBLE at sleeping. I mean. Spelling. See what I mean? Haha. And it’s fun to make up words. My friends and I do it all the time!
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