Don’t Snigger at Sniglets
Words can be a fun pursuit, starting with the tracking of their creation and then tracing their eventual absorption into and evolution within the language.
The term neologism, a term signifying new words however odd their origin and unexpected their construction, was coined back in 1803. That was the year the first public library opened in the U.S. and the year Ralph Waldo Emerson was born. The coincidence is remarkable. (1803 also happened to be the year the U.S. completed the Louisiana Purchase from France, but that was a totally separate matter.)
If you know your etymological theory, you will remember that words are created in a variety of ways, with prefixes and suffixes added to root words, from eponyms (people and place names) and acronyms, by truncating existing words and or extending their meanings. Many are transplants from other languages.
Words are at their most interesting when formed by compounding. There are the basic compound words like bedroom and mailbox (both of which come together nicely in the sappy Meg Ryan movie, You’ve Got Mail.
There are portmanteau words, best exemplified by Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. You doubtless remember the “slithy (lithe and slimy) toves”. And how the son, after slaying the Jabberwock, “left it dead, and with its head / he went galumphing (galloping in triumph) back”. While Jabberwocky is considered a nonsense poem, the fact is several of its inventions have found their way into the language, including chortle (chuckle and snort) and, less commonly, frabjous (fabulous and joyous).
For sheer cleverness, my favourite compound words are sniglets. Sniglets were created by Rich Hall, an actor performing on the HBO comedy series Not Necessarily the News back in the ‘80s. Sniglets are, as he would say, “words that don’t appear in the dictionary, but should”. Some examples:
- Aeroma: The odor emanating from an exercise room after an aerobics workout;
- The Bozone Layer: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating;
- Timefoolery: Setting the alarm clock ahead of the real time in order to fool yourself into thinking you are not getting up so early;
- Glibido: All talk and no action.
Sniglets should not be confused with protologisms, a term invented by Mikhail Epstein of Emory University to cover compound words that are created to fit particular definitions in the hope they will see further use. These examples will be familiar to many, at least by their intent:
- Nagivator: A back-seat driver who criticizes his or her spouse’s driving rather than helping with the navigation. Not to be confused with…
- Negolomaniac: A person addicted to providing unwarranted negative feedback.
These definitions should, at the very least, make it into the Odford English Dictionary. But they have truthiness and it would be fun to hear them in general use.
How about ignasecond (the second you are simultaneously closing the door and realizing the keys are still inside).
Many words are being made these days just to make them unique, so they are googlable. (Should I capitalize that?)
While I was out driving on the highway I thought up a sniglet based on the trucker traffic passing the other way on the highway…
“TRUCTION”: The wake of wind that pulls your car towards the centre lane when you pass an 18-wheeler going the other direction.
(Truck-Suction)