Have you ever made up words and then used them?

[Hispoiema]

A lot of times when I am writing to a friend, I will come up with a word that I am not sure even is a real word in the English language. I will look it up to check and I will find the correct word that I ought to use in place of my own word that I came up with.

When this happens, I often favor the word I just inadvertently made up and then explain to my friend that I did indeed make it up and then explain to them the meaning.

Now, with that said, I cannot think of any of those words at the moment. If I do I will come back and post them. It's just something I do spontaneously.

Am I the only one who does this?  :confused:  I realize we can not do this within proper writing of course. 

[Dora M]

Oh yes, I have been making up words since I was a kid. I like fusing words together and create double meanings. I have a special vocabulary with my boy-friend, which is a mixture of German-Spanish-English experimentation that only we understand.

[Rosa]

I think making new words is something that most of us do. Some of us when we write and others when we speak. It's a casual thing that makes communicating with friends more fun.

[Kandikkal]

Well I did these kind of tricks while in school to impress my friends . Nowadays I try to find the appropriate words from internet or I ask my IRC friends to help me. It is more easy to learn the right word rather than creating words .

[skywatcher]

It's a thing we do! Though it's not exactly "made-up". I think most of our words are based on a rather odd mixture of English and our native language (Filipino).

The most I've used is "kebs", which is an abbreviation of the word "keribells", which is another derivation for "carry on", which is kind of becoming a new slang for "go on" or "okay".

[g2narat]

Hahaha! What a fun topic! I have actually, and it's so weird that I cannot think of any at the moment! Oh wait, here's one that was made up by a friend of mine that I thought was hilarious: karmageddon. It means the coming of karma. Isn't it just hilarious?

[lizbeth19hph]

As a writer by profession, I sometimes coin some words or terms that  use in my articles. I have to explain to my readers though what is the meaning of the new words so they will not be confused. At times it's quite fun to make up new words.  :grin:

[fredkawig]

I have been able to make up words but they are not real words and are not in any way connected to any other word. The reason behind is that when people make up words which are similar or wrongly used word of the English language, it creates confusion and a source of laughter to people who grasp the English language well.

[GingerSpice]

I have, haha, and it's pretty fun! I'll be talking to my friends and randomly insert a made-up word into our conversation, and more often than not they'll say, "....did you just make that up?" Busted!  :grin:

[Hedonologist]

Oh absolutely, only amongst small groups of friends though. I think having these in-group terms is very common, if not near universal. There are even phenomenons where twins have their own kind of sub language. My average sociolect has been 50-200 terms and I think that's about average.

[Baburra]

My friends and I always do this and we always come up with new words to describe everyday things in conversations. I think we do it mostly just because talking about the same things sometimes makes it a bit repetitive. It's not that we invent words, either, we just use existing words in place of official ones and we somehow all understand what it means automatically.

[sidney]

No, I haven't done that and I don't think that I will ever do that. I only make up my own words to be used as passwords, but to actually use them in a conversation sounds absurd to me.

[Rosyrain]

I don't recall the last time that I made up a word when speaking to someone, but I have made up my own phrases before to describe a situation...I will not repeat any of them on this site though as some of them are quite vulgar and use profanity.  It was just the way I felt at the time and how I expressed myself.

[Cheesy Potatoes]

Yep. My family makes up words all the time. Sometimes, I even use them when I talk to other people and it confuses them. Making up words is fun, because it's like an inside joke that other people don't know about.

[Elly]

Yes, I do this! But I forget the right away, so they must not be very good, if they're not memorable and easy to use all the time.

I think that I read somewhere (forgot exactly where, sorry--) that if a person can find a word being used in five different places within three months of each other, then that word is worthy of being added to the dictionary. Usually, though, the word only gets notice like that when it's above the quota and used far more frequently.

[angie51]

I always invent new words especially for young children, this can keep them amused for hours. Ordinary everyday objects become exciting to a child if given a new name. My son continues to call a potato peeler by the made up name "coat stripper".

[healthandfitness]

As a writer and lyricist, I have been known to create words and use colorful phrases that are used to entertain and make specific points to listeners. I have enjoyed doing this since my youth. Sometimes there is not a word to best describe something, so you have to make due by "mixination" of words like I just did there (mixination is not a real word). :grin:

[Gelsemium]

I think we all make up words, it's just convenient and it's really fashionable to do it these days, especially singers and show business people are making up words all the time.