SPINE

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Lexical dark matter

Medupical

Frostitute

Killingry

Phomance

The above is a list of words that are not to be found in any dictionary, however, they are words that can be used to enhance the evocativeness of what one is trying to convey. According to Erin McKean, founder of Wordnik.com such words could be said to belong to "lexical dark matter," a realm in lexiverse that is peopled by words and expressions which remain undictionaried (un-colonized by dictionaries) till the time when there is enough evidence of their usage.

The twentieth-century inventor, Buckminster Fuller used the term "killingry" to connote an entire apparatus for killing, a product of the military industrial complex. "Killingry" is formed by analogy with the word "weaponry."

A logical antonym of "killingry", according to composer John Cage would be "livingry".

"Phomance"? It could mean an incredible romance with Vietnamese food, or, phony romance.

What could "frostitute" mean? A person who sells his flesh for frosting?

We could invent words endlessly, but McKean suggests:

I’m not advocating using or creating new words just for kicks; use of neologisms should be judicious, lest you end up sounding like a bad science-fiction novel. If your new word enhances your readers’ experience, go for it.

Does this mean that I can't use "Islandic" as a substitute for "insular"?

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