# Writing > General Writing >  creation of new words

## cacian

to write is to originate new words to fit in the format of one's style.
should a writer be able to invent new words because he or she feels they are needed to fit within the genre of their writing or the style they write in? those who read them may need to understand them their own way. This to encourage imagination.
A writer then gets to organise their own dictionary of founded new words as a token to their writing journey.
The other words I was thinking about was the invention of NEUTRAL WORDS that would mean everything and anything according to the sentence they are in.
So have you found new words and what are they?

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## Lokasenna

I think by now we've all had your linguistic philosophy thrust down our throats often enough to know all about your 'free-and-easy' approach to language invention. The English language is rich, beautiful, and infinitely varied: why create new words when you already have so many attractive, meaningful and (above all) layered words to choose from. The English language has been nearly two thousand years in the making, and you by your own admission never spend more than half an hour in composing a 'poem'... I think I know where I'm more likely to be able to mine the words I need.

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## hannah_arendt

> I think by now we've all had your linguistic philosophy thrust down our throats often enough to know all about your 'free-and-easy' approach to language invention. The English language is rich, beautiful, and infinitely varied: why create new words when you already have so many attractive, meaningful and (above all) layered words to choose from. The English language has been nearly two thousand years in the making, and you by your own admission never spend more than half an hour in composing a 'poem'... I think I know where I'm more likely to be able to mine the words I need.


I think that English gives many possibilities. Recently I have found it more varied than Polish. It has many layers, thousand of constructions, very often difficult to learn by a foreigner.

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## hillwalker

Here's a new one I made up earlier. . .

*cacianate* - to mangle, corrupt, misguide, terrorise, annoy

H

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## cacian

> I think by now we've all had your linguistic philosophy thrust down our throats often enough to know all about your 'free-and-easy' approach to language invention. The English language is rich, beautiful, and infinitely varied: why create new words when you already have so many attractive, meaningful and (above all) layered words to choose from. The English language has been nearly two thousand years in the making, and you by your own admission never spend more than half an hour in composing a 'poem'... I think I know where I'm more likely to be able to mine the words I need.


More then half an hour? It all depends sometimes it takes five minutes sometimes more. I do not plan to spend a life time composing one piece. I have got many words to craft and all of them to use. A dictionary stores thousands of words and so I intend to use every single one of them in the poems I write such is my dedication to the English language. The inventions of new words in the meantime is just a token to give it more richeness the more words the better. That surely is a positive thing to do to add to it.

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## cacian

> I think that English gives many possibilities. Recently I have found it more varied than Polish. It has many layers, thousand of constructions, very often difficult to learn by a foreigner.


I would say English is the easiest language to learn because it is methodical and has less derivatives then its counterpart of French or Spanish.
I speak both the latters and I can assure you French is delicate and Spanish irritable in grammar.
I feel the more one writes the more one discovers new words. I see great joy in inventing new words and English is one that allows you to do so.
I am not sure is Polish the same?

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## hannah_arendt

> I would say English is the easiest language to learn because it is methodical and has less derivatives then its counterpart of French or Spanish.
> I speak both the latters and I can assure you French is delicate and Spanish irritable in grammar.
> I feel the more one writes the more one discovers new words. I see great joy in inventing new words and English is one that allows you to do so.
> I am not sure is Polish the same?


Are you a native speaker of English? English is not so easy :Smile:  I have been learning it for more than 10 years and I still sometimes have many doubts. Polish is different. I think that there no such as easy and difficult language. For example, I have wanted to learn Welsh however it seems to be different from English and Polish and because of this reason I woudl have to put much more effort. 
If it comes to Polish, a difficult point is Phonetics and Grammar.

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## cacian

> Are you a native speaker of English? English is not so easy I have been learning it for more than 10 years and I still sometimes have many doubts. Polish is different. I think that there no such as easy and difficult language. For example, I have wanted to learn Welsh however it seems to be different from English and Polish and because of this reason I woudl have to put much more effort. 
> If it comes to Polish, a difficult point is Phonetics and Grammar.


Hi Hannah no I am not. I guess Welsh is extremely difficult because of its phonetics. Welsh pronunciation I am guessing is extremely difficult.
I found it easy and difficult at the same time to learn English because I am a native French speaker and many words in French to English are related and not related.

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## hillwalker

Welsh is probably easier to learn than English.

Spelling and pronunciation are much more consistent in Welsh - the same sequence of letters is almost *always* pronounced the same way.
Unlike English where '-ough' for example can be pronounced '-off' (as in 'cough') or '-oo' (as in 'through') or '-uff' (as in 'rough') or '-ow' (as in 'bough') or -aw' (as in 'thought') or '-o' (as in 'dough').

H

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## cafolini

The strength of cacianation is in the fact that language, so long as the dictionaries are incomplete, provides lots of double standards to fart around. English is one of the most complete and flexible but not yet enough to pin down and eliminate manipulation by usage. I already gave several examples of what is needed and is slowly happening.
Homonyms are just as important as synonyms, not because of the diarrhealectical effect of antagonisms, but because of parallel flows and understanding as well as superstanding. Cacianation is unavoidable without completion.

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## Shaman_Raman

If you wish to play around with English, you don't necessarily have to make up new words. Old words take on a new connotation all the time, and its far less confusing because it's a word people are familiar with. Like saying "this is heavy" was a popular phrase in the 80s, saying "my bad" is one you may hear instead of "sorry" now a days. You call an attractive person hot, and a rude person cold...since when did someone's temperature determine their beauty or personality? Lol...point is, meanings of words are dynamic, so there's really no need to invent new words.

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## Shaman_Raman

But hey, you never know Cacian. Homer Simpson's "Doh!" Was admitted into the dictionary, so I suppose any word or phrase can be created if it gains enough popularity.

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## hannah_arendt

> Hi Hannah no I am not. I guess Welsh is extremely difficult because of its phonetics. Welsh pronunciation I am guessing is extremely difficult.
> I found it easy and difficult at the same time to learn English because I am a native French speaker and many words in French to English are related and not related.


I learnt French at school a lot but unfortunately I don`t remember much. Last summer we went to Paris I was able to comunicate in very simple, everyday situations. There are many words of french origin in English however they can be called 'false friends'. Nevertheless, for example 'le chambre' has close meaning to 'chamber'.

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## hannah_arendt

> Welsh is probably easier to learn than English.
> 
> Spelling and pronunciation are much more consistent in Welsh - the same sequence of letters is almost *always* pronounced the same way.
> Unlike English where '-ough' for example can be pronounced '-off' (as in 'cough') or '-oo' (as in 'through') or '-uff' (as in 'rough') or '-ow' (as in 'bough') or -aw' (as in 'thought') or '-o' (as in 'dough').
> 
> H


It`s true that english phonetics isn`t very easy for the foreigners. I have never had big problems with it. Only a little bit troublesome thing has been for me the accent. I can learn the rules but it seems to me that I don`t here it . I have to learn (by heart of course) transcription and it is something meaningless for me, I must say. 

What about welsh grammar?

Do you speak welsh?

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## hillwalker

I do indeed speak Welsh - my first language. I didn't learn to speak English until I began school at 5 years old.

Welsh grammar has certain similarities to French - such as nouns having a gender, an adjective almost always following a noun rather than preceding it as in English. I guess the biggest problem most people have when trying to learn Welsh as a second language later in life is pronouncing letters like 'LL' or 'CH' or 'DD'. They invariably get these wrong.

H

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## Lokasenna

> I do indeed speak Welsh - my first language. I didn't learn to speak English until I began school at 5 years old.
> 
> Welsh grammar has certain similarities to French - such as nouns having a gender, an adjective almost always following a noun rather than preceding it as in English. I guess the biggest problem most people have when trying to learn Welsh as a second language later in life is pronouncing letters like 'LL' or 'CH' or 'DD'. They invariably get these wrong.
> 
> H


I love my housemates to bits, but watching them trying to pronounce anything in Welsh is hilarious. I'm taking two of them to visit Wales this weekend, and I'm seriously considering taking them to the nearby village of Dwygyfylchi, if only to watch them attempt to say it.

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## Paulclem

New words are being created all the time - as we can see with the OED's list of new words for 2013 - update

http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/...st-march-2013/

I don't think an individual can claim to invent words off the top of their heads though. Groups of people invent words that serve a particular use, not individuals with idiosyncratic notions without reference to anyone or anything else. The language evolves through constant use and reference to new and adapted words via various groups who spread the relevance through communicating with different groups or perhaps these days through social media. It is a fascinating process.

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## Steven Hunley

Most of the words you'll find that are new are related to new inventions or things related to them. The word CD or DVD wasn't around not long ago. All the computerize is 'new speak' too. We didn't have teleconferencing until after TV did we? I was reading part of a text book the other day, and it was World Literature, or something of that sort. It was a collection of short stories written in English. Some from ex-colonies, in Africa, or the Caribbean, or parts of Asia, etc. The grammatical formations and expressions were in English, but not like our American English or your English from Great Britain. It made for interesting reading!

As was mentioned above, older stuff is good to read, as some expressions that were popular at the time have fallen out of favor recently, and so darn expressive you can recycle them.

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## cacian

> New words are being created all the time - as we can see with the OED's list of new words for 2013 - update
> 
> http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/...st-march-2013/
> 
> I don't think an individual can claim to invent words off the top of their heads though. Groups of people invent words that serve a particular use, not individuals with idiosyncratic notions without reference to anyone or anything else. The language evolves through constant use and reference to new and adapted words via various groups who spread the relevance through communicating with different groups or perhaps these days through social media. It is a fascinating process.


Hi Paulclem and thank you for the link. The amount of words with the word BLUE is incredible.  :Smile:

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## hannah_arendt

> I do indeed speak Welsh - my first language. I didn't learn to speak English until I began school at 5 years old.
> 
> Welsh grammar has certain similarities to French - such as nouns having a gender, an adjective almost always following a noun rather than preceding it as in English. I guess the biggest problem most people have when trying to learn Welsh as a second language later in life is pronouncing letters like 'LL' or 'CH' or 'DD'. They invariably get these wrong.
> 
> H


It seems to me that welsh sounds have a very special charm. I promise that one day I`ll learn it :Smile:  

Do you prefer to use English or Welsh?

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## hannah_arendt

> I love my housemates to bits, but watching them trying to pronounce anything in Welsh is hilarious. I'm taking two of them to visit Wales this weekend, and I'm seriously considering taking them to the nearby village of Dwygyfylchi, if only to watch them attempt to say it.


Have a nice weekend there :Smile:

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## Lokasenna

> Have a nice weekend there


Thank you, I'm sure we will! Wales is particularly beautiful, and neither of my housemate have been there before - so, hopefully the weather will be nice to us!

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## hillwalker

Dwygyfylchi - ah, the sea, the hills, the caravans. . . You could be really cruel and take them on to Abergwyngregyn or Llanllechid.

Do I prefer to use English or Welsh? Well, sadly I find English much easier since it's the language I use 99% of the time now. I have to think before speaking in Welsh when visiting some of the family. But Welsh is very much a musical language and I still enjoy reading Welsh poetry as well as writing when I find the time.

H

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## Calidore

> It`s true that english phonetics isn`t very easy for the foreigners. I have never had big problems with it. Only a little bit troublesome thing has been for me the accent. I can learn the rules but it seems to me that I don`t here it . I have to learn (by heart of course) transcription and it is something meaningless for me, I must say.


Accents are tricky, and I think English might be one of the worst, because both England and the U.S. have numerous regional and "class" accents. As long as people can understand you, don't sweat it.




> Welsh is very much a musical language


Speaking of accents, I do have to say that I like the rolling Welsh accent very much. One of my favorite things about _Torchwood_ was listening to Eve Myles; she always sounded like she was tying a cherry stem while speaking.

And to reference an above exchange between Hannah and cacian on language learning: I've wondered sometimes whether it might actually be easier to learn a language that is completely different from one's own (say Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Russian), because you can simply throw out everything you know rather than having to ignore similarities that keep trying to grab you. Has anyone here learned both similar and "alien" languages, and what have you found?

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## hannah_arendt

> Accents are tricky, and I think English might be one of the worst, because both England and the U.S. have numerous regional and "class" accents. As long as people can understand you, don't sweat it.
> 
> 
> 
> Speaking of accents, I do have to say that I like the rolling Welsh accent very much. One of my favorite things about _Torchwood_ was listening to Eve Myles; she always sounded like she was tying a cherry stem while speaking.
> 
> And to reference an above exchange between Hannah and cacian on language learning: I've wondered sometimes whether it might actually be easier to learn a language that is completely different from one's own (say Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Russian), because you can simply throw out everything you know rather than having to ignore similarities that keep trying to grab you. Has anyone here learned both similar and "alien" languages, and what have you found?


What language do you mean?

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## kasie

> Welsh is probably easier to learn than English........H



Oh, hillwalker, who are you kidding!!  :Smilielol5:  :Smilielol5:  :Smilielol5: 

Maybe if you learn it as your first language, it is easier to acquire, as I would imagine any first language is easily learnt, but believe you me, it's fiendishly difficult to learn as an adult! I've learned French, German, Italian as living languages and Latin and Old English as read-only languages and none of them (not even Old English) caused me as much trouble as Welsh - it has rules of grammar like no other language I've ever met. What about mutations? I'd just about mastered them after five years but they can bring tears to the eyes of the beginner. 

And pronunciation isn't always the same - I'm thinking of the 's' in 'senedd' which isn't the same as the 's' in 'siarad' - ah, that's because it's 'se' and 'si', a different rule, of course. So there are exceptions and differences which have to be learned and which confuse the beginner, just like in any living language.

As for pronunciation, are you talking to a Welshman from the North or the South - they even have different vocabularies. My standardised course for adult learners had two different versions, one for the South and one for the North. Even in south Wales you'll have differences: the pronunciation (mostly place names as my parents were from an English speaking valley) which I learned from my Valleys parents was different from that of my Carmarthenshire neighbours, who liked to pretend they didn't understand my Gwent variations and were even dismissive of them as not 'proper' Welsh (too near England....) 

I won't get into the exclusivity of Welsh - it's far too political.  :Biggrin5:

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## hillwalker

I agree that North Welsh and South Welsh are almost two totally different languages. Maybe I'm not the best person to comment on how easy it is to learn - I was speaking Welsh as a toddler so it can't be that difficult (lol).  :Biggrin5: 

But when it comes to reading Welsh from the printed page there are very few exceptions regarding pronunciation - 'y' is always pronounced the same as 'u' in 'mud' unless it's in the final syllable of a word (in which case it's pronouned the same as the 'i' in 'bin'). That's usually enough to confuse anyone learning it as a second language - who fail to pick up the difference between 'mynydd' ('mountain') and 'mynyddoedd' ('mountains').

Chware' teg - the mutations are indeed enough to confuse even a native Welsh speaker.

H

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## hannah_arendt

> I agree that North Welsh and South Welsh are almost two totally different languages. Maybe I'm not the best person to comment on how easy it is to learn - I was speaking Welsh as a toddler so it can't be that difficult (lol). 
> 
> But when it comes to reading Welsh from the printed page there are very few exceptions regarding pronunciation - 'y' is always pronounced the same as 'u' in 'mud' unless it's in the final syllable of a word (in which case it's pronouned the same as the 'i' in 'bin'). That's usually enough to confuse anyone learning it as a second language - who fail to pick up the difference between 'mynydd' ('mountain') and 'mynyddoedd' ('mountains').
> 
> Chware' teg - the mutations are indeed enough to confuse even a native Welsh speaker.
> 
> H


I count on your help in the future :Smile:

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## hillwalker

Of course!

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## hannah_arendt

For now, I can just say: Bore da :Smile:  Unfortunately I don`t remember more :Frown:

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## hillwalker

Bore Da (Good Morning) is a good start - then there's Prynhawn Da (Good Afternoon) and Nôs Da (Good Night)

H

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## hannah_arendt

Thanks :Smile:

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