headermask image

header image

Top 10 Made Up Words

July 22, 2010 – 2:22 PM

Top 10* Made Up Words Sarah Palin confusing refudiate for repudiate and then calling it a new word got me thinking about other made up words. Refudiate may not have much staying power, but most of the following 10 words (listed in order of acceptability) are likely to be with us for a while. 10. [...]

By Mignon | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (15)

The Volume of a Drop

May 13, 2010 – 2:04 PM

Sometimes I get a question that doesn’t have an answer. Today’s question was about the rules for using a shortened name. For example, when do you write “Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC)” and use “TMCC” in the rest of the document, and when do you write out the full name every time you use it [...]

By Mignon | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (3)

What Do You Call Making Up Words?

June 5, 2009 – 8:00 AM

In the book Personal Effects: Dark Arts by JC Hutchins (@jchutchins), a guy makes up words hoping people will use them (for example, he makes up the word “foolbiscuit” to mean idiot). My favorite pop-culture instance of this is the character in the movie “Mean Girls” who keeps trying to get everyone to use the [...]

By Mignon | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)