For those of you of a certain age, you might know comedian Rich Hall. Rich has a most marvelous sense of humor, and a definite way with words.
Rich sort of invented Sniglets....
sniglet (n.) A word that should be in the dictionary but isn't. The word is derived from an HBO show from the early 80s titled Not Necessarily the News.
Or, if you will, neologisms...
A neologism is a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. Neolexia (Greek: a "new word", or the act of creating a new word) is a fully equivalent term.
The term neologism is first attested in English in 1772, borrowed from French néologisme (1734).
In a 1990 interview, Hall was asked if the "Sniglets books [were] completely for comic value. He answered,
Yeah. Well, no. I wouldn't say they're completely for comic value. I mean, I get letters from schools all the time saying how they've incorporated a sniglet book into their reading program. You can look at a lot of the words and sort of break them down into their etymological origins. And you can learn a lot about how and where words derive from. When you assign this frailty of human nature a word, then the word has to work. It has to either be a hybrid of several other words, or have a Latin origin, or something.
The New York Times says sniglets are back, in the form of one of their crossword puzzles...
THURSDAY’S (2/29/12) PUZZLE — If you watched a television show called “Not Necessarily the News” on HBO in the mid- to late-1980s, you will appreciate this one. Although the practice of making up nonsense words existed well before then, the comedian Rich Hall popularized and renamed them as sniglets for a whole new generation. Sniglets, Mr. Hall said, are words that don’t appear in the dictionary but should.
Using sniglets in the crossword pissed some people off. They have no sense of humor...
Neither does The Onion, apparently...
The hell with them. I love sniglets. Here are a few examples:
baldage - n. The accumulation of hair in the drain after showering.
carcreak - n. Those crackling, tinkling, creaky noises your car makes after you park and turn it off.
cheedle - n. The residue left on one's fingertips after consuming a bag of Cheetos.
chipfault - n. The stress point on a potato chip where it breaks off and stays behind in the dip.
fenderberg - n. The large glacial deposits that form on the insides of car fenders during snowstorms.
kawashock - n. Pulling into the last remaining parking spot only to discover a motorcycle there.
marp - n. The impossible-to-find beginning of a roll of cellophane tape.
polarind - n. The peeling on a Polaroid snapshot.
sperrets - n. The marks left on your face from falling asleep on a heavily-textured couch pillow.
thermalophobia - n. The fear when showering that someone will sneak in, flush the toilet, and scald you to death.
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We've made up a few over the years...
flump - v. The smooth, continuous action that a cat does when he goes from a standing position to lying full length, most often on your keyboard or whatever you are reading at the time.
dosimeeting - v. The sidewise movements you and another person make in the hall or a grocery aisle while deciding on which side to pass. (Derived from "do-si-do" in square dancing parlance.)
ghost poo, or simply poo - n. Packing peanuts, but only the white ones. Other colors - i.e., the non-static pink poo, or environmentally-friendly green poo - are not ghost poo, but simply "poo".
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Sniglets are different from just changing the definition of words (see: new definitions of Santorum or Romney) in that they should be totally made up, or at least accreted from known words.
So... since this has been another relatively stressful week, for our evening's frivolities it might be fun to make up your own sniglets...
How to create a Sniglet:
1. Blend related (or unrelated) words
2. Change a spelling to change the definition
3. Create a totally new word
4. Change a product name to fit (see: "polarind" or "cheedle")
(Try not to be mean, or terribly nasty. Inventive is good... There won't be a test later.)
I've provided the "Hall" so to speak... Did anyone bring music, drinks, or food?
From ontheleft coast:
Fictionary - n. - A book that contains the definitions for words that you want them to be as opposed to what they are. Example usage, In the Republican fictionary the word socialism is defined as "what ever Obama does".
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