A neologism is an invented or artificial word. The purpose of this entry is to highlight the areas in which new words have been created by people to fulfil a specific purpose (eg the word 'Laser' was invented to describe something new).

Barbarous Neologisms

Quite simply, barbarous neologisms are words that are made up from two different languages, such as Greek and Latin. There are a few of these, particularly in Tolkien's work, as he was a keen linguist.

Invented words in Science

When scientists invent a new thing or discover a new principle, they often give it a new name. Sometimes they name them after themselves¹, but sometimes they give them sensible names that find their way into everyday language (or are at least recognised by nearly everyone). A good example of this is the word 'Laser', which is an acroynm of 'Light Amplification through the Stimulated Emission of Radiation' and was coined in 1959 by Gordon Gould² based on the acroynm 'maser'³. Similarily, 'radar' stands for 'RAdio Detection And Ranging' and was coined by the US Navy in 1942. The term 'radioactivity' was invented by its creator, one Marie Curie, as was a radioactive element, 'radium'⁴.

Invented Words That Replace Swearwords

In order for literature/TV/Film to become more widely available and achieve better sales as a result writers often coin new words that replace swear-words. This practice is most common in science-fiction, fantasy and comedy genres, as the suspension of belief is naturally greater. This list is just a short run-down of the most common -

• Fug - American author Norman Mailer used this word in 'The Naked and the Dead' as a euphemism for the f-word⁵.
• Frell - Characters in the SF series 'Farscape' use this word in times of stress. Most believe this is yet another allusion to the f-word.
• Smeg - The writer Grant Naylor⁶ created the word smeg (along with goit and gimboid) for their TV sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. The word didn't mean anything in particular, it was just a general expletive. Little did they know that smeg was also the name of a fridge manufacturer and it's closeness to the word "smegma" has led some to beleive that it is a contractionof that word.
• Naff - The TV sitcom 'Porridge' used the word 'naff' (usually when saying 'naff off') as a general expletive.

Literature figures that invented words

The master of the made-up word is Lewis Carroll. His poem Jabberwocky is full of them. 'Chortle' is one that has made the jump to regular English. Note that Jabberwocky appears in his famous novel Alice Through the Looking Glass⁷.

JRR Tolkien first coined the term hobbit and also invented many words to describe the different aspects of Middle Earth. As well as this, Tolkien was a linguist who used to make up new languages as a hobby.

SF author Larry Niven uses 'tanj' as futuristic expletive in his 'Known Space' stories (e.g. 'Ringworld'). He explains 'tanj' as being a abbreviation of the phrase 'there ain't no justice'.

Due to the amount of time between now and when he was writing, few people realise that Shakespeare made-up a lot of words that we use today. There are far too many to name individually, so if you want to find out more read Shakespeare's Coined Words.

And yes, before you say it, one Douglas Noel Adams, who wrote a radio series/book/tv series about Arthur Dent's travels through space and time also invented some words, such as hooloovoo⁸ and frood⁹.

Invented Words in the Electronic Age

When e-mail/message boards first sprung up on the Internet, people wanted to minimise character strokes. For this reason, new Acronyms, Smileys and Emoticons were created. That's not to say that acronyms and smileys weren't around beforehand, just that more were created and their use was even more widespread. This idea was taken even further when text messaging became popular as most phones and networks allow a maximum of 160 characters per message and people tried thier best to get the most out of this quota. For this reason it is common place to read a text message like this - "Hey. I'm on my way bak 4m de cine. B round 15mins. Gav." For some, this is hard to decipher. For those in the know it reads, "Hello there, kind and friendly gentleman. I am on my way back from the picture house and will be home in approximately fifteen minutes. Gavin."

Further Reading

If you want to read more about technology-driven words and phrases, the Jargon File or New Hacker's Dictionary could be useful. It's a huge resource of information, and partly understandable even for non-technical people with an interest in language. Mirriam-Webster also has an article on Made-up Words.