Writing|Etymology
Words That I Believe Need to Be in the Dictionary
My “Polate” response to a great prompt
Back on June 8th, Tree Langdon ♾️ provided us with a great writing prompt; one in which we get to make up our own words! Now, what self-respecting writer hasn’t ever intentionally (or maybe not so much) made up a word?
I know I have, and they seemed like a great fit at the time — until someone pointed out that they weren’t a word. Huh, seems like it should be…
I should have been in the habit of writing those down in a log somewhere because, honestly, when Tree suggested this prompt, I knew I had a bunch, but couldn’t remember any. That, plus just plain ol’ overcommitting myself in June meant that I haven’t made a response as yet.
But let’s put that to bed right now! But first, here is Tree Langdon ♾️ ‘s original post:
Since then, a host of writers have answered the challenge, and Tree has dubbed them as “The Crew”. Which is pretty cool, to have an exclusive club with a name and everything. I certainly hope to be that cool someday, and maybe after today I will!
Eli Snow submitted at least one response.
Daniel G. Clark produced this, another, and a third.
Tree Langdon ♾️ also did a couple more here, and here.
Eashan Reddy Kotha did one about food; and another.
Paroma Sen contributed this one.
Keno Ogbo celebrated our lack of sleep.
James G Brennan contributed some good ones.
And finally, Uchechi Obasi gave us Avocadohore in this one.
Hats off to THE CREW and congratulations on your Fantasmical words! I am a little intimidated, but here are my entries into what, surely, will be the new dictionary that Tree will edit and produce for the masses to enjoy!
Dipnoodle
First off is a word that you need to keep at the ready in case you are driving with extended family, your boss, or young kids. The next time that a**hole cuts you off you can utter the words, “What a dipnoodle” softly and vent some of your understandable anger in G-rated fashion.
Your new mother in law will be impressed with your self-control, uncle Al will be amused, your boss will marvel at your creativity and ability to channel energy into innovation, and the kids will laugh and giggle along with you as you silently fume and grip the wheel even tighter.
Fantasmical
In a similar whimsical vein, when you sincerely want to wish someone a great day, or describe something beyond words, you need a word to do so. An amalgamation of fantastic and magical, “Fantasmical” does the job perfectly.
Make sure you use this one only when appropriate, or it will just become the next toothless version of “awesome”.
Ignoricle
I have read all of the articles that say that a scientifically proven way to get a reader’s attention is to create a story in the form of a list and put a number in the title — preferably an odd number, like 5.
Well, I have unscientifically determined that listicles are completely and utterly boring! Yes, that number does get my attention. It stands out like a huge warning sign to run the other direction as fast as possible! Read those numbered stories if you wish, but I prefer to consider them “Ignoricles”.
Idiodependent
It’s hard to be a politician these days. No matter what they do, someone will interpret it as a bad move. Some might even go so far as to call the decision “idiotic”. Most of the time, the decisions don’t so acutely affect us as much as during this pandemic.
With states and economies reopening at a phased-in pace, we are dependent on the decisions our leaders make in terms of simply being able to go out of our houses. If you think your local authority is doing a great job, then you probably aren’t bothered as much. If you think they are botching it, then you are likely in a state of “Idiodependency”.
Polate
And finally, as my subtitle suggests, sometimes we are late in our responses when we really don’t want to be. In those cases, we try to be as nice and sweet as possible, so people don’t make as much negative reference to our tardiness. In times like this, we are trying to be “Polate”.
Thank you so much for reading! Please tag me in any responses to this challenge, as well as reaching out in the comments or on Slack if you have challenges or prompts you would like me to feature in July.
If you like this, you might like some of my other recent writing, including my July daily roundup of writing challenges such as this one:
And my most recent response prior to this challenge:
And a wrap up of June’s final week of new writer stories:
