Lurkers and Hot Messes–or How to Fill a Linguistic Hole
By David Corbett | September 13, 2016 |
How to Make Your Own Shakespearean Insults:
My last few posts have been pretty heady-and-heavy, so I thought I’d lighten up a little this time around and play with language a bit.
Specifically, I wanted to talk about neologisms (invented expressions) and linguistic holes (understandable concepts for which our language lacks a word or phrase).
In some ways, these are two sides of the same coin–the use of language to express the seemingly inexpressible.
Neologisms seem the special province of writers, for who delights more in creative language than we do?
Shakespeare is hands-down the champion in this regard, as demonstrated by the now-famous worksheet for creating one’s own Shakespearean insults that sits atop this post. (Warning: prepare to get lost for a while, thou pribbling, motley-minded puttock!)
Notable inventions from other famous authors include:
Twitter: Geoffrey Chaucer
Yahoo: Jonathan Swift
Freelance: Sir Walter Scott
Pedestrian: William Wordsworth
Butterfingers: Charles Dickens
Banana Republic: O. Henry
Grinch: Rudyard Kipling
Nerd: Dr. Seuss
Factoid: Norman Mailer
Gremlin: Roald Dahl
It’s not just the literati who come up with new words, of course. For example:
“Dadbod” was coined by Mackenzie Pearson, a Clemson sophomore who wrote an essay, “Why Girls Love the Dad Bod” (for a male body best described as “softly round”)
Some of my personal favorites among the recently coined can only be attributed reliably to our good friend Anonymous, such as:
Cupertino Effect: The tendency of a spell checker to suggest or autocorrect with inappropriate words.
Digital Surgery: Post-production techniques used to make actors appear taller, slimmer, less wrinkled, etc.
Manspreading: When a male rider on public transit sits with his legs spread wide in order to discourage anyone taking the seats to either side.
Precrastinator: Someone who performs a task sooner than necessary, particularly as a way of delaying a bigger or more stressful task.
Not to mention the two neologisms in the title of this post:
Lurker: An Internet user who goes to blogs, chat rooms, message boards, and comment threads but never participates.
Hot Mess: A person, thing, or event that is extremely disorganized or unsuccessful.
Last but not least, there’s this mini-scene from The Simpsons:
Two teachers stand at the back of the auditorium as someone recites Springfield’s motto:
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Teacher 1: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield.
Teacher 2: I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Slang
Neologisms, of course, are just another version of slang, which always strives for not just function but flare.
Want to disappear down a rabbit hole for a few hours? Try a slang website, like this one from the U.K.
Personal favorites (among those I can actually mention here—a great many are wildly obscene) include:
faffer (a person who fusses or dithers)
fannybaws (an idiot, a fool)
firtle (to appear busy without actually achieving anything)
flannel (nonsense)
flimp (a taxi driver’s term for an unbooked fare)
folding (cash—“holding the folding”)
fundy (fundamentalist)
And that’s just the Fs!
Portmanteau Words
Then there’s the special case where words get created by fusing two others:
workaholic (work + alcoholic)
bashtag (bash + hashtag)
fabtastic (fabulous + fantastic)
fuddled (foggy + muddled)
hacktivism (hack + activism)
lamestream (lame + mainstream)
blook (book written by a blogger)
Frankenfood (genetically modified edibles)
phubbing (snubbing someone by focusing on your phone).
Lewis Carroll might be the all-time master of this particular sub-genre—not surprising, since he coined the term used to describe it: “portmanteau word.” Examples:
chortle (chuckle + snort)
galumph (gallop + triumphant)
mimsy (miserable + flimsy, with a hint of prim thrown in)
slithy (slimy + lithe)
snark (snort + bark).
But James Joyce was no slouch either. Consider these from Finnegan’s Wake:
ethiquetical (ethical + etiquette)
sinduced (sin + seduced)
fadograph (fade + photograph)
blinkard (blink + hard).
Finally, some portmanteau words are unintentional, such as President Bush’s “misunderestimated,” and Sarah Palin’s “refudiate.”
Linguistic Holes
This concept is a bit like the inverse of a neologism—it refers to a concept for which no word exists in English, such as l’esprit de l’escalier (French for that snappy comeback you only think of once the moment has passed).
Some of my other favorites:
Koi No Yokan (Japanese): The feeling upon first meeting someone that the two of you will fall in love.
Tartle (Scottish): The panicky hesitation you feel before having to introduce someone whose name you can’t quite remember.
Kummerspeck (German): Excess weight gained from emotional overeating.
Greng-jai (Thai): The feeling you get when you want someone to do something for you because it would put them out.
Schlemiel and schlimazel (Yiddish): For Laverne & Shirley fans. Someone prone to bad luck, but distinguished by active or passive expression. The schlemiel is the one who always spills his coffee; the schlimazel is the one on whom it’s always spilled.
Palegg (Norwegian): Any ingredient, no matter how “creative,” for a sandwich.
Shemomedjamo (Georgian): When you continue to eat an entire meal despite feeling full.
Layogenic (Tagalog): Something that looks okay from a distance, but not up close.
Seigneur-terraces (French): Someone who sits at a café table for hours but spends little.
Pana Po’o (Hawaiian): To scratch your head in order to help you remember.
Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish): Someone who wears his shirttails out.
Cavoli Riscaldati (Italian): The result of trying to revive an unworkable relationship. Translates to “reheated cabbage.”
Forelsket (Norwegian): The specific feeling experienced while falling in love, in contrast to being in love.
Aşermek (Turkish): To crave certain foods while pregnant.
Madrugada (Spanish): The time of day between late at night (i.e. past midnight) and early morning.
Litost (Czech): Milan Kundera (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) described this emotion as “a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.” (A more detailed account of Kundera’s analysis can be found here.)
Augenblicksgott (German): A minor divinity that passes in the blink of an eye and has a momentary effect.
Bilita Mpash (Bantu): An amazing dream. The opposite of a nightmare.
Shouganai (Japanese): Something that cannot be helped, so why worry about it?
Fargin (Yiddish): To wholeheartedly appreciate the success of others.
I will be on the road somewhere between San Francisco and New Orleans when this post goes up, so I most likely will be unable to respond to your comments until late tonight.
But for now—do you have any favorite neologisms or linguistic holes? Please share them with your fellow Unboxers (itself a neologism).
In particular: have you invented any neologisms yourself? Have you encountered a linguistic hole in your writing–a state of mind or complex emotion that defied easy description in English?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
I am so very proud of my neologism, probably because it is the only one I will ever devise, so I have to milk it for all it is worth:
Obliviped (n): the person who cuts in front of you on the sidewalk without looking, or pushes a grocery cart slowly along the middle of the aisle. Oblivipeds (plural form, often teenagers) spread out laterally and stroll along leaving no space for others to pass.
Oh, Anna, that is AWESOME. I have always commented on these folks — who increasingly are hypnotized by their phones — as lacking in situational awareness (a military term for knowing what the heck is going on around you), but I can’t wait to use obliviped in daily use. How fun. Thanks!
When I was a teenager, I used to love the word befuddled, since I (mistakenly) thought I’d invented it by combining bewildered+fuddled, though until today I didn’t realize it’s a case of triple portmanteau. Thanks for this thoughtful trip through evolution via neologisms. I have been phubbed and definitely am guilty of firtling at times, but never had a word for those until now.
In my own writing, I love to make up words and expressions, a conceit that’s wide open for my genre (fantasy). In the last manuscript I finished, I created something like the Shakespearean insults with the military swear system used for disciplining soldiers, i.e. codlicking gutstink, whoreblazed maggotload of boweltripe — perhaps more a blend of Shakespeare and logical holes. As a reader, I love when an author will make up a word, especially when the context invites me to guess but never pinpoint exactly.
A fun break from the usual, though I have to say I love your heavy-and-heady stuff. By the way, I’m almost done reading Art of Character, and I’m so glad you recommended it. You’ve opened my eyes to character in whole new ways and I’ve even seen it translate in the manuscript I’m working on right now–thank you!
John:
Ha! I love them: codlicking gutstink, whoreblazed maggotload of boweltripe — yeah, I sniff more than a little Shakespeare in there. Well done.
Glad you’re finding Art of Character useful.
Love this post. Such an amazing collection! A secondary 8-year-old charter in my WIP came up with “Flabberdoozled.” I have no idea where it came from except from her lips but means flabbergasted + bamboozled. (Which probably fits into one of your categories above!)
Another great one, Carol. Flabberdoozled — it really should be in the dictionary, doncha think?
Definitely!
Fun post, David. One of the things that came to mind as I read is how often I hear merged words that are unnecessary. The Lochteism of “overexaggerating” comes to mind. Certainly if one is exaggerating they are already stretching the truth. Is it necessary to add the over? Or does this imply such routine exaggeration that it’s needed? And I can’t believe how often folks now use “oftentimes” when a simple often will do.
Having said that, oftentimes I spent hours of my writing time making up terms and names. I’ve even been known to refer to myself as Namey-Namer (when it’s likely a simple “Namey” would do). I once sat down with a beta-reader who’d jotted a few things that bothered him in a notepad. The number one item? Too many made up words and hyphenated words. (Apparently I’m well-inclined to over-hyphenation, as well.)
Thanks for the wordage amusemafest! Safe travels.
Thanks, Vaughn. Loved your post the other day. Travel prevented me from commenting, sorry.
Named-Namefest. Yeah, but you write epic fantasy, where names are typically a shorthand for character. Cersie Lannister, anyone?
About fifteen years ago, my kids and I made up the term Smalltimore over dinner one night to describe how everybody knows everybody in Baltimore — not always a good thing for kids who learn by making mistakes. Within six months the term had spread at their schools. Now it’s a common term here in “Smalltimore” and can be found in the Urban Dictionary.
Love it!
You made that up, Ann? Wow! EVERYONE uses it now! And of course it so accurately describes this town.
that is so cool!
David-
This is perhaps the moment to introduce the literary term you inspired in a prior post, in which you highlighted a literary effect for which I could find no name:
“Pleasing Paralogism”: A far-fetched or non-logical comparison that nevertheless makes sense.
Examples:
“She had the straight posture possessed by those with a clear conscience.”
“His memory was as keen as a Sunday confession.”
As far as linguistic holes go, there ought to be some specific to the book publishing biz:
Gilded Bomb: A book receiving high praise and lavish promotion that nevertheless sells poorly.
Fore-Shuddering: The feeling you get when you read an opening so inept that you know you will reject.
Mirror Scrimmage: The contest between books with identical premises released in the same season.
Royaltease: A royalty statement with few details.
Paperhack: A plagiarized work that has no other merit.
Sub-Ruckus: A dispute over who controls a derivative right such as translation.
Pre-cognotion: A bar napkin story idea that is a guaranteed best seller.
Happy travels.
Am stealing ‘Gilded Bomb.’
I like to read the reviews for those. Often by readers totally confused because everyone on the good review side is gushing about a book, and they find it terrible – for carefully detailed reasons.
Can apply to movies, etc., too.
Love these!
These are great!
I concur with the consensus. Question: might fore-shuddering also occur not just on the reading of such an opening, but the writing of one?
David–Along with being hilarious, your post today has helped me to correct an error in my new suspense novel. One of my characters refers to the Tamiami Trail as a neologism, a new word created by fusing Tampa and Miami. It does do this, but after reading your post, I now see that Tamiami is more accurately thought of as a portmanteau. Thank you.
Do I have a neologism to add to the list? Not one I can take credit for, but one I think has wide application, especially in this election season: crasshole.
Thank you again. I won’t be reading anything better for days.
I think you deserve double credit, Barry, since a portmanteaus are a subset of neologisms. (And knowing the geography, I love that term.)
Hi, Folks: I’m in lovely Amarillo, Texas (which is actually gray and wet today, and windy, making the cattle yards especially fragrant). My wife is jazzed about breakfast at Ye Olde Pancake Station (Home of the World’s Best Pancake), while I remind myself: just because one can eat pancakes doesn’t mean one must). We’re driving through Chillicothe, Texas today (where at the Dang Good Candy stand you can buy truly amazing pecans), then rushing through Dallas on our way to Shreveport, Louisiana. I’ll get to the rest of your comments tonight. Thanks one and all for chiming in.
Love this post, David! One of my favorite neologisms was created by my son as a child when he misread a word (How often has that happened? Maybe we need a word for that, too!).
He knew perfectly well that the past tense for mislead is misled, and could spell it and use it correctly when speaking. However, when he read the word, he thought it was the past tense of the verb to misle. And obviously, to misle someone is way worse than to mislead them, so nasty and sneaky. Now misle is part of our family vocabulary.
I think I would hate to be misled.
Great stuff, you beslubbering sheep-biting strumpet, you.
So many great ones to choose from, but my current favorite portmanteau-thingie is probably Askhole: a person who constantly asks for your advice, yet always does the opposite of what you tell them.
You just made my wife and I laugh, which is no small thing given the unique scent of our hotel room here in Shreveport.
I love Shakespeare insults and have incorporated them in my novel. My family has always made up words, a mish-mash of Hindi, Marathi, and English and now more often a mashup of the romance languages with English. Right at this moment, my favorite word is kituba … and speaking of, one little kitten is demanding to be picked up and petted, while the other looks on. And before I lose this entire message, I’d better hit post.
Enjoy your road trip.
Kituba. Sounds like a musical instrument (kitten + tuba). Or an African dialect.
I think families, especially children, create a lot of these words, resulting in the personalized language that is so much a part of familial intimacy.
When my now ten year-old grandson was a toddler he loved to play with my umbrella, as it had a large button that was easy for him to push, popping the umbrella open. One day when he was visiting, he wanted to go for a walk. I told him that we couldn’t go out because it was raining. He replied, “Yes we can, just get your….” He paused, obviously searching for the right word, then continued with a smile, “Get your rainbolla.” We don’t have umbrellas in my family anymore, now we have rainbollas.
A few years later, his little brother was looking at pictures in a “Movie Cars” Christmas coloring book when he came to a drawing of one of the cars wearing large, fluffy earmuffs. Pointing to the picture he said, “Look Gram, he’s wearing earpuffs.” So now, fluffy earmuffs are are earpuffs.
Courtesy of my oldest granddaughter, the women in my family no longer use eyelash curlers, we use ‘eye rollers’ (eyelash curlers+hair rollers), and we don’t tell the story of Little Red “Riding” Hood”, but of Little Red “Walking” Hood, because–as she quite matter-of-factly observed when she was four, “I don’t know why it’s called a ‘riding’ hood, because she doesn’t ride anywhere, she just walks.”
And, thanks to my father’s family, we don’t do anything as vulgar as fart or cut-the-cheese in my family, we have ‘sneezers’. It seems that when my father and his cousins were young they had an elderly relative who had the gastric misfortune of passing gas every time he sneezed.
Thanks for prompting a delightful stroll down one of my sillier memory lanes, David.
I loved all these stories. Children do come up with the best words.
Thanks, Vijaya.
Kids say the darnedest things. –Art Linkletter
SUCH a fun post — THANK YOU! This is my favorite stuff.
For more good ones: go back and read Dahl’s BFG. That character — that voice — and so many great neologisms…..
I love this post!
I’m guilty of introducing “glazed,” meaning, in a daze, in my pschological thriller. I also wrote a response to Esquire’s “List of slang to leave behind,” and introduced a bunch of new words. One of them, “hideous,” to replace awesome, they really liked and sited me in a follow-up article. Ha! I’m waiting to hear, “That was hideous!” during X-games, then I’ll know I have arrived. Where? I have no idea.
Hey David, is this list available as a full size .pdf or .doc do you know? I think this is one list that will be better IRL. Taa