Editorial and new words

Tell us what you thought of the June 2010 issue!
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doc
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Post by doc »

The problem is, Tao, that you just took nearly 200 words to explain what your neologism means. That severely limits its ability to catch on, because it's not intuitively obvious. A neologism has to be more than clever, it has to be useful, and the ones that catch on are the ones where you go "Oh, of course, I NEED that word" without having to spend a lot of time thinking about its origins.

(I like Dan's "back-splice" suggestion, because it does suggest precisely what it means, in the context it would be used).

As to Dan's comment about people putting words together to make new words....well, English is a Germanic language (if only because "mutt" isn't recognized as a linguistic category), and that's a hallmark of the German language. Makes sense that we'd do similar things with our own words.
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Lester Curtis
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Post by Lester Curtis »

I almost coined a new word for my poem "Cigar," but I chickened out . . . the phrase "artisan-work" almost became "artisana," and until I looked for it, I thought it was an actual word. Seems like it should be, at least. No matter, I think "artisan-work" fits better.

So, here's another new word for anyone who wants to use it.
I was raised by humans. What's your excuse?
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