Do you invent your own words in your native language?

[anna3101]

I've never intentionally invented a single word in my life, but some just kind "happened" along the way. Often those are pet names for members of my family, they sound more special when I know probably no one has made them up in the same way that I did. I have a special word for "thank you" when I talk to my sister. Both of us are studying French, so one day someone mixed up Russian and French by accident, and mersibo just stayed with us. A couple of others appeared because I couldn't find the right word for them in Russian (like, feeling cold, hungry and miserable at the same time ) so I've made them up on the go once and well, they also stayed. Of course, I only ever use such words with people who are close and know what they mean.

I wonder if anybody here also has their own words? If so, what is the reason for their creation?

[czarina84]

Yes, I have.  Some of them are swear words, so I won't type them here.  Mostly they are just for the sake of humor.  I have the sense of humor where I like to catch people off-guard by saying something unexpected.  Some words I made up to avoid other words.  I don't know any polite way to say "diarrhea".  So, in order to avoid using that word and making people uncomfortable, I say "fiberlicious".  It makes people laugh and takes a bit of the discomfort away from the problem.  My friends use it now. 

[Wanda Kaishin]

As a kid I invented a few choice names for friends. As an adult, at a time of my life when I was trying to reduce my swearing, I invented "You mother loving, ice cream sucking son of a peach!" I hope that didn't hurt your eyes.

[Richard.H]

Most definitely!

But I do it mostly for foreign words. Especially for Japanese. Or I would mix the languages and create multilingual words and/or sentences! That's fun! Well, for me anyways!

Or translate words into other languages so they would lose their meaning all together. It's great with Japanese and Chinese words since they use characters which have their own meaning. So I would then translate these characters into a western language and call the original thing that.

Obviously I would do this only with people who speak both languages. Otherwise it's not quite as funny

[anna3101]

As a kid I invented a few choice names for friends. As an adult, at a time of my life when I was trying to reduce my swearing, I invented "You mother loving, ice cream sucking son of a peach!" I hope that didn't hurt your eyes.

You didn't hurt my eyes It actually sounds fun. I've seen people attempt to replace swear words with their own equivalents, and I think it's hilarious. Some of those newly invented swear words are so creative and fun, I wouldn't hesitate to use them myself.

[Chris_A]

I kind of tend to combine words from the different languages that I know. It is really funny for my friends hearing these hybrid words that I invent all the time, and they take pleasure in correcting me or saying that said words don`t really exist in a given language. But I cannot help it. If a word sounds good in a language or another, I will try to use it.

[Wanda Kaishin]

Is there anything funnier than hearing a non-native botch an attempt to swear in your language? I think not.

[Miya]

I don't purposely try to do it, but it happens sometimes. I either make languages I know together or I make up the word based on my image of the item. It's really weird now that I think about it.

[anna3101]

I think making up new words is what keeps the language alive. After all, somebody created those we use now, right? The more the merrier

[Mameha]

I think that since when we are intimate with our NL and we always speak this way, it's normal to invent some new words, maybe for fun of in jokes in general

Anyway this thread reminded me of a funny thing about a telefilm. I don't know how it was translated in other languages, but in italian the telefilm's guy mixed 2 colours: Giallo (Yellow) and Blu (Blue) so he invented the colour Blallo! 

[KimmyMarkks]

My family and I definitely make up words in our own language.  We have developed our own words for when someone is being annoying and irritating.  We also shorten longer words.  I am not sure if other families do this but I know my family has been doing it for years.  People definitely look at us a little crazy when we talk in public.

[lushlala]

Yes, my family and friends tend to do this all the time. My friends and I used to do it more when we were younger. The sort of words we've coined from already existent words either in Setswana and English can generally be easily worked out. They're the types of words the meaning of which you can easily guess from the context. The idea is not to have some sort of secret coded language,  but rathe to have fun with language. We don't sit there thinking up words, they just sort of happen.

[hungary93]

Oh yes, I totally call things not in their original names.

Me and my brother so often disappoint ourselves when it turns out that certain things are not called in a way, out parents just found it cute and let us call it our version. I am not saying this is cruel but they could have saved us a lot of embarrassing moments, well at least our friends can laugh a lot at us.

[DivaDee]

Sometimes most of my combo words are swear words cause due to the fact that I live down south in America, you sometimes think of new ways to diss people to get the bullies off your back (which ended up spreading like wildfire in my school)... And since English is mostly madeup of almost every word new words are constantly being made up all the time... like... Swag... which apparently means cool... I hate that word so much... But sometimes me and my siblings will make combo words in English (only), English-French, English-Japanese, English-Chinese, English-Spanish or an amalgam of three or more languages... So yeah...