Blog: How to Make Up Words

I have long been notorious for crafting words and subsequently attempting to inject them into the English language. When I was a toddler, my naming game was unintentional, brought about by my inability to say certain words like “dessert” (“gussert”) and hotel (“hotowel”). In middle school, my invented word was based off a fictional entity I had invented named Yasgood and I defined it as, “an object or person that is irrevocably awesome”. I really have no recollection of exactly how this came about, but I think this is definitive proof that I was just a really weird kid.

One fine day, while roaming the halls of East, I was pondering why exactly the words “toast” and “ghost” sounded the same, but were spelled differently. I thus decided to combine them to create one magnificent superword: “goast”. My memory is fuzzy as to how I decided this, but “goast” means roughly the adjectival equivalent of “yasgood”. Though on Urban Dictionary, the word “goast” is suggested to be a ghostly goat, I believe that since I have given the word an alternate meaning, that it is a new. Agree with me or not, I’m sticking to my guns on this one.

Through my plentiful experience with making up words, I have fashioned some helpful suggestions for making up words, phrases, or even entire languages. Yes, it is an ambitious task, but I encourage everyone to try.

First, I suggest building off of or combining words that are already in existence (such is the case of “goast”). For example, combine your grandma’s name with your favorite cheese or your car’s model with your favorite type of cookie.

You could also use an actual word in the English language and use it in a way that it wasn’t intended. Gretchen, in the movie “Mean Girls” uses the word “fetch” to mean “cool or amazing”, instead of the actual dictionary definition. I have personally started using the word “fedora” as an insult. This is an interesting, though confusing suggestion, as the people around you might think that you are unintentionally misusing the word, instead of being the goast person you are and doing it on purpose. I know I’ve gotten some strange looks from people I have muttered, “You darn fedora!” to.

The only thing that is absolutely necessary after you’ve chosen your new word is making sure that you casually insert it into your daily conversations. The main character in “Frindle” gives a new name to an inanimate object, but acts like it’s nothing new and it keeps on spreading until it becomes commonly used. Making up new words is sure to shake things up and keep life interesting. Yes, people are inevitably going to argue, “Stop trying to make [insert word here] happen! It’s not going to happen!”

But if Snoop Dogg can do it, why can’t we all?