Coined with Intent

Abstract

Although most deliberately coined neologisms disappear without a trace, some durable words have been coined with intent. Linguists call them de novo terms. Such neologisms are typically created by combining existing words and clauses, adding prefixes and suffixes, and adapting terms borrowed from other languages (as when Thomas Huxley turned to Greek for agnostic, Richard Dawkins for meme, and Norbert Wiener for cybernetics). An elite group of neologizers don’t just tap existing terminology to produce new words, they create them from scratch. The results, notable for their scarcity, can be thought of as scratch words. In addition to recoining the chemical term bromide to refer to soporific pronouncements, humorist Gelett Burgess cut blurb and goop from whole cloth. Playwright George S. Kaufman did the same thing when coining widget. Any number of brand names, such as Kodak and nylon were also created from scratch.