Make up your own...

Post date: Jul 4, 2015 12:45:32 AM

One of the things we can learn as writers is that people are deeply interested in words and sometimes there are no words to express exactly what you want to say. What do you do then? Make up your own words.

Who does this?

Dr. Seuss, Dickens, Shakespeare, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. M. Barrie, James Joyce, Nabokov, William Gibson, O. Henry, Herb Caen, Joseph Heller, Sir Walter Scott, and many more.

My wife was making fun of me for running around the house in my undies or underwear. She termed it, "Oh, look at you in your panties." I replied, "I do not wear panties. I wear manties." and thus coined a term that has stuck with us and may spread through the efforts of this blog and you good readers.

Use your made up terms wisely, not everyone can start a landslide, just maybe it will be a pebble of one in your own family and a few other families close to you. Maybe, as people read you and the word you've coined, maybe it will catch on and spread like wild fire and you will join this illustrious list of authors above.