Back to the Subject

The whole point of that weblog was indeed the neologism... As you  probably noticed, I did not made up new words in my last posts... I deeply apologise for this and here you go, I will repair this big mistake...

Because indeed, even if in English you can make up words pretty much as you want, there are still some rules that you cannot completely ignore and if lots of people don’t respect them, they cannot necessarily let a foreigner –such as me- do it without mentioning it… For instance:

“Where is the scissors?…

- Sorry hun, it is where are the scissors!” (Please bear in mind that I was the second person speaking in the dialog and not the first one).

Regarding my own practice, I have to confess I have basically two choices to make people laugh with such a neologistic activity.

The first choice –quite straight forward- being to make up words literally, like lately: Wonderfulness (apparently Bill Cosby did a show called like that, but as you have probably understood that I come from elsewhere than an English-speaking country, I could not cheat. And anyway, who said that Americans were speaking English?)... I just thought that it was a shame that a positive adjective could not be used as a noun…

The second choice is when I am not sure of the meaning of a word and I want make sure that it is what I think (very clear, isn't it?). I find really strange ways to explain what I think it is... e.g. Piece of fabric which makes you fall down slowly => Parachute, of course. Apparently the concept of falling down slowly seemed to be funny for some people around me.

Oh well. If some people are amazed by my ignorance, I can say as well that a friend of mine the other day thought he was going to impress me with a new English word he did not know: sempiternal... And has been surprise when me, the little frog, has been able to tell him that it was a synonym of eternal, lasting for ever... (same word than in French actually). But the sad thing about it is the self-putting-down ability I can develop made me explain, almost justify the fact that I knew it because of its roots taken in my own language (or not by the way, I am not sure, and it does not really matter)... Oh well...

"Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them." (Bill Cosby)

Comments

[Davey]

It just reminds me of the delightful George Bushism: "What's the french for restaurant?". Oh, and by the way, that's the last time I try to impress you with long words!!!