X- X-Spring and more

X – X-Spring and more

As I began to keep a writer’s notebook, I decided to add a glossary section. It wasn’t a dictionary in the real sense. It did list words and define them, however, most of the words that I put in my glossary were not real words. They were made up except some of the words I came across in my readings or science lectures that were so weird I had to add them to my inventive word dictionary even though they were actually real words, such as “frass” which is caterpillar poop. Not a word that you are going to use very often, but a good word to know when you need to scream out profanity and don’t want to offend anyone (except maybe caterpillars).

The bulk of the words that I collected came from my son, probably from when he was between six and twelve years old. 

Here are some of the invented words that I collected and are in the notebook:

X-Spring: looks like and feels like Spring, but it’s not really Spring.  This was a great way to describe warm days in winter. Of course, that led to the words X-Winter, X-Summer, and X-Fall.  So now you know that even though it is officially Spring, when you get a day as we’ve had during the last few weeks, and the temperatures went down to the low 40s and 30s, that it wasn’t an abnormal temperature day for Spring, it was just an X-Winter day.

Slits: those travel brochures you see in pockets as you enter a hotel or information center. There are numerous places that have slits just waiting for you to grab and trying to sell you some product or invite you to an event. Even car dealers have slits. My family still uses this word to this day.

Sissy bed: This is half of a queen bed. I’m pretty sure this is smaller than a twin bed. 

Fizzdorf: feeling like you’re stuck in a bottle of fizz, like shivering when you don’t feel good.   Some peoples’ reactions to the COVID vaccines have definitely suffered from fizzdorf.

Dehydrinator: a water machine. It probably should have been called a Hydrinator, I would think.

Anti-thermic: very hot. 

Danderbed: Anywhere a cat sleeps. No explanation is needed for this word. This was created by my wife.

Imaginerate: This makes you imagine. I had to imaginerate today in order to come up with something to write about. 

And finally one of my own:

Homonot: a typically misspelled word written by students – it looks right, but it’s not.  Examples of homonots would include frist (for what you do before second), gril (the opposite of boy), and stroy (a tale to be told). 

I am very curious why my spellchecker has not highlighted all of the words that I have written down as invented words. Feel free to dream up new words or share ones that you’ve already created in your word notebook. 

Andrew Clements wrote a book entitled Frindle. It’s about a boy who makes up a word (Frindle) and decides not only to use it frequently but to get everyone else to use it. Eventually, it becomes a real word. Irregardless of that fictional story. Wouldn’t it be cool if you dreamed up a word or bunch of words and they showed up in the next edition of Webster’s Dictionary or got selected as Dictionary.com’s word of the year?  

Maybe if I can dreamicate my written imaginerations well enough, by next X-Spring I will be a world-renowned lexicographer.