Made up words in novels

miles · Feb 22, 2009

I recently used the term "guthooks" which is a type of knife, but it's unrecognized by WORD.

Stephen King uses a lot of made up words. I caught these in just one chapter of DREAMCATCHER:

buttplate
gunsight
sausagey
auntieish
unfog
barrel-assing
widdershins
jackalope

Do made up words bother you, especially when it's not apparent what the hell they mean?

What are some of the best ones you've seen or made up?

geardrops · Feb 22, 2009

Not to be an ass, but widdershins is a real word. As is buttplate. Gunsight gave me an internet-dictionary hit, though I'm not sure what that one's worth.

Made-up words only bother me when they aren't explained and aren't self-explanatory. Because if not, they're just placeholders for an author too lazy to find the real damn word.

But sometimes, they're done very well. Do you grok?

sunandshadow · Feb 22, 2009

Jackalope is also a real word, it is a mythological animal that is a jackrabbit with deer antlers, they are supposed to be tricksters. Actually the only one of those words that I don't know is barrel-assing. But, I make up words all the time. Ardens and ardenmate, xenallure, Labrynn, the three gender-names bearer, seeder, and layer, and other overloaded English words like shifter, ship, shield, Homeroom, and dozens of names. I think it's one of the fun parts of being a writer, being able to participate in the evolution of the English language.

miles · Feb 22, 2009

sunandshadow said:
Jackalope is also a real word, it is a mythological animal that is a jackrabbit with deer antlers, they are supposed to be tricksters. Actually the only one of those words that I don't know is barrel-assing. But, I make up words all the time. Ardens and ardenmate, xenallure, Labrynn, the three gender-names bearer, seeder, and layer, and other overloaded English words like shifter, ship, shield, Homeroom, and dozens of names. I think it's one of the fun parts of being a writer, being able to participate in the evolution of the English language.

Yeah, I didn't look up each one--just typed the ones I didn't know into WORD and it didn't recognize them. Mind you, this was a five minute browse through one section of a book.

Perhaps I'll go through it more carefully and find some "real" ones.

Mr Flibble · Feb 22, 2009

There are planty of standard words that Word doesn't recognise.

But I can understand all bar one of those out of context, and I'm pretty sure the last would be easily understandable in context

It's only a problem for me if the made up word makes no sense.

RobJ · Feb 22, 2009

miles said:
What are some of the best ones you've seen or made up?

My favourite would be 'grok', from Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

Cheers,
Rob

swvaughn · Feb 22, 2009

I think 'barrel-assing' is an awesome word. A verb, I assume?

I just used 'underwhelming' in my WIP. MS Word doesn't agree that it's a word, but I'm keeping it.

miles · Feb 22, 2009

swvaughn said:
I think 'barrel-assing' is an awesome word. A verb, I assume?

From DREAMCATCHER:

Three or four more, though, and Henry could go barrel-assing down this road at sixty.

From THE SHINING:

A kid on a snowmobile, barrel-assing up a road he'd never traveled before at better than thirty miles an hour.

I'm curious, are made-up words copyrighted? If I were to use "barrel-assing" in a novel, am I plagerizing?

Clair Dickson · Feb 22, 2009

Not being recognized in MSWord is not necessarily an indication of whether something is or is not a word. Just as not all dictionaries have the same words. And words are being added to dictionaries all the time. Word doesn't have the complete English language in it's dictionary. Largely, there's no point.

If merely not being in MSWord's list of words means one is not real... well,it's a good thing I add my name to every computer I'm on. =)

Mr Flibble · Feb 22, 2009

miles said:
From DREAMCATCHER:

Three or four more, though, and Henry could go barrel-assing down this road at sixty.

From THE SHINING:

A kid on a snowmobile, barrel-assing up a road he'd never traveled before at better than thirty miles an hour.

Ahh see that was the one I wasn't sure of, but it does make sense in context - like a colloquial variant on barrelling.

Clair Dickson · Feb 22, 2009

Oh yeah, local slang just ain't gonna be in MSWord's dictionary!

swvaughn · Feb 22, 2009

miles said:
From DREAMCATCHER:

Three or four more, though, and Henry could go barrel-assing down this road at sixty.

From THE SHINING:

A kid on a snowmobile, barrel-assing up a road he'd never traveled before at better than thirty miles an hour.

I'm curious, are made-up words copyrighted? If I were to use "barrel-assing" in a novel, am I plagerizing?

Cool! I suspected that's what it would amount to in context.

As far as copyrights on made-up words, it's not likely that they are copyrighted. Things like barrel-assing and auntieish are just new ways to combine existing words and word parts that make them unique. You'll probably run into some reader frowning if you use truly fabricated, recognizable words like grok. But I've read a lot of King's work, and I wouldn't recognize that barrel-assing came from him. That's not to say someone else wouldn't, though.

However, it would probably be better to make up your own combo words that mean the same thing. There is a lot to play with in the English language, especially when it comes to forming compound words and unusual adjectives. Poke around and see what you come up with!

tehuti88 · Feb 22, 2009

I occasionally make up words if I feel something doesn't fit, but it's always clear what they are from the context--somebody mentioned "auntieish" above, that's along the lines I mean. I sometimes combine two words into one because it looks proper to me that way even if the word processor or dictionary doesn't list it as such. ("Brastrap," e. g.) If I were getting published and they decided to hyphenate it or split it back into two words, I wouldn't mind.

A long while back somebody on these forums made up the word "sheepdoggishly" to describe long bangs. That too is along the lines of what I myself sometimes do (only not nearly so cleverly). I don't make a point to do it a LOT, but it happens on occasion, when I feel the dictionary doesn't have the proper word to describe something.

Karen Duvall · Feb 22, 2009

MS Word hates me. I make up words all the time, but I write urban fantasy so it's kind of allowed. Like my main character is Hellspawn, and the racial slur for his kind is spawnster (a play on monster because Hellspawn are half demon and half human), and you won't find either in a dictionary. But I also use some 19th century slang that appears made-up, but really isn't. It's just that it hasn't been used in so long no one recognizes it anymore. For example: "wrathy" means angry, and "skell" is a derogatory word for homeless person or bum.

NeuroFizz · Feb 22, 2009

I like some made up words, particularly if they are two real words stuck together. But they have to be clear within the context of the prose and they have to used very sparingly. It's particularly fun to do in poetry (sticking two words together). It can be almost gestaltist.

This from one who has the word "assholic" in print.

job · Feb 22, 2009

miles said:
From DREAMCATCHER:

I'm curious, are made-up words copyrighted? If I were to use "barrel-assing" in a novel, am I plagerizing?

A word cannot be copyrighted. It can be trademarked for a limited set of protections against commercial competition, but that's different.

Use of a word someone has coined, like 'grok' or 'slithy', is also not plagiarism. (Plagiarism is different from copyright.)
If the author's coinage has not been picked up generally, using it yourself might be seen as hommage. Or might be seen as 'derivative'. Or it might just be leading-edge use of a new word. But a single word does not contain sufficient original content to make using it plagiarism.

Going further ... if the word represents a unique, specific and original concept, copying that concept wholesale might be plagiarism.

Aggy B. · Feb 22, 2009

Ah. See I not only combine words to make new ones I actually make them up. The criteria for me is if I need a word to describe something unique to the MC's world that does not exist in any form in the "real" world OR if I need a better word to communicate the culture and language of my MC's world.

Examples are:
aviants
chuggled
trodge (although I seem to recall having heard this one before)
brass-like
glim

Interesting that you mentioned widdershins. I used that word too and one of my readers thought I had made it up.

Gynn · Feb 22, 2009

miles said:
I recently used the term "guthooks" which is a type of knife, but it's unrecognized by WORD.

Stephen King uses a lot of made up words. I caught these in just one chapter of DREAMCATCHER:

buttplate
gunsight
sausagey
auntieish
unfog
barrel-assing
widdershins
jackalope

Do made up words bother you, especially when it's not apparent what the hell they mean?

What are some of the best ones you've seen or made up?

As long as it's fairly obvious to what the meaning is, I don't mind. I put 'liquidic' in my WIP because I didn't like the sound of 'liquid-like'.

cwfgal · Feb 22, 2009

Barrel-assing isn't a King word. I heard that word many, many times while growing up from family, friends, etc. Since I grew up in the Northeastern part of the country, I wonder if it's a colloquialism specific to that area?

In my novel SECOND SIGHT I used a made-up word for my protag to use to describe the aura-like images she saw around people after she had a new surgery performed on her eyes to restore her sight. The word was glowance.

Beth

Ruv Draba · Feb 22, 2009

miles said:
Yeah, I didn't look up each one--just typed the ones I didn't know into WORD and it didn't recognize them.

Word's default dictionary barely encompasses business English.

Get a real dictionary. Get a good one with an etymology. Use it. Learn where words come from, how they connect. If you wouldn't want your doctor performing surgery in mittens, or your loved one embracing you in steel-wool long-johns, don't inflict Word's palsied grasp of business English on your reader.

Nateskate · Feb 22, 2009

It doesn't bother me as long as it fits. Even as a kid we'd make up slang. "What's the cross between a 'nothing' and a 'turd'..."

Art and youth introduces slang on a constant basis; and our culture eventually accepts slang- don't dis me. It becomes a part of the culture. Phasers and transporters and such were all concepts. What's a Warg? An Orc?

Tolkien wrote much on the formation of language. And creating Jargin is really going on all the time, and creative minds are at the forefront.

What I don't like is when someone doesn't do it tastefully. They want to sound so unique that they sound cloying. I want a frugiat with a whimbo fritatay, on the momobobomo. I also chaff when writers feel the need to make their writers carry a pocket dictionary of obscure words.

But somebody somewhere just probably ordered a frugiat somewhere in the world.

50 Foot Ant · Feb 22, 2009

Buttplate: A plate on the stock of the rifle, that goes against the shoulder, usually grooved metal, sometimes having a flap that will open and allow access to a storage area within the butt of the weapon.
Gunsight: The sight on a firearm, from the iron sights of a rifle or pistol, to the target-like sight of a WW-1/WW-II era machinegun.

A made up word is more along the lines of Daelemia which you could use as a word for a race, or the type of military unit used by the elves, and stuff like that.

blacbird · Feb 22, 2009

Anthony Burgess made up a whole slew of them in A Clockwork Orange, and did it brilliantly.

caw

J C Coy · Feb 22, 2009

I use two made up words in my current wip...but I explained them right away so no one's in the dark.

Clair Dickson · Feb 22, 2009

Shakespeare made up a whole bunch of words... ;-)

Made up words in novels

agent at The Knight Agency

Good thing I like my day job

Impractical Fantasy Animal

agent at The Knight Agency

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

adrift

agent at The Knight Agency

A dark core to every cloud

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

A dark core to every cloud

adrift

Mackinac Island Fanatic

Chalice the Hatchet Knight

The grad students did it

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

Not as sweet as you think

Wandering worlds

On the rocks

A dark core to every cloud