Category Archives: Non-word of the Day

MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, Part 8 – EPONYMS

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Ed Battistella

July is the month added by Julius Caesar (and August, naturally, by Augustus Caesar), which is why September, October, November and December and not the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth month, as they should be based on their Indo-European roots. … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, PART 7: NYMS

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Ed Battistella

April is both a personal name and the name of a month. It’s a homonym (a word with two meanings) and nyms are the theme for Jthis post. We’ve got synonyms, acronyms, homonyms (and homophones—which sound alike but spell differently, … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, PART 6: VERBING NOUNS AND MORE

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Ed Battistella

This post is about some of the non-word tricks that I haven’t been able to use and about some that I have. One of the tricks that I haven’t been able to use is to verb nouns. Verbing nouns means … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, PART 5: SUFFIXES

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Ed Battistella

Making up words requires suffixes—word endings. In English, there are two major types of suffixes. Some endings INFLECT nouns, verbs and adjectives, and adverbs to show their grammatical forms: plural, possessive, past tense, comparative, superlative. And some endings DERIVE new … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, PART 4: PREFIXES

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Ed Battistella

March was about prefixes. The un- of uncool, unknowable, unpredicatable, unintelligible, uninhabited, and so forth. Attached to adjectives, un- means not. It also means not when attached to nouns, like undead, uncola, and the great unwashed. But attached to verbs, … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, PART 3: CLIPPING

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Ed Battistella

If you Febrify something, you reduce it by 1/15th or 2/30th. So for February it makes sense to introduce the technique of clipping. You shorten a word, from the front (auto from automobile, gas from gasoline, dorm from dormitory, exam … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, PART 2: Blending

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Ed Battistella

Blends are words formed by taking two (or more) words and pushing them together, dropping some sounds and letters. So “smoke + fog” become “smog, breakfast + lunch” becomes“brunch”, “spoon + fork” becomes “spork”. You see what’s going on. Lots … Continue reading →

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MY YEAR OF NEW WORDS, part 1

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Ed Battistella

\We love words. Some are short and sharp, like “cut” or “kick.” Some of are confusing, like “citation” (is it good or bad?) and “ogle” (is it AHgle or OHgle or UHgle). Some roll smiling off our tongues, like “Kalamazoo” … Continue reading →

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Non-words for December

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Ed Battistella

We made it. Here are the Non-words for December. Thanks Bobby Arellano, Brian Wagner and Leroy Fulwiler. There’s more non-word fun to come, including some non-words that didn’t make it. So stay tuned. peasle, v. to object to every new … Continue reading →

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Non-words for November

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Ed Battistella

Here are the Non-Words for November. One more month to go. Thanks to Becky Bartlett for cudgedit and to David Brown for the idea behind chronosomnia. hensive, adj. able to be grasped or held, metaphorically or physically. 1 Nov uningratiate, … Continue reading →

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