Sunday, July 15, 2007

Protologisms

A prototype word without even the status of a neologism. Set forth for your perusal. In fact I was struck by the overall modesty of the proposals.

I stumbled on this corner of Wiktionary (and stumbling on odd corners of Wiktionary, and Wikipedia, too, is often a useful way to understand the sites), for my first time. A suprprisingly high percentage of these are either hilarious, very clever, and erudite.

"The term "protologism" is considered a neologism based on standardizedWiktionary criteria."Neologisms are newly acknowledged terms. They typically have not been incirculation long enough or widely enough for their social status to bedetermined. Neologisms can be nonces, slang terms, or even illiteracies."The citation of "protologism" may be restricted to certain other contextsthat have not been fully investigated, such as industry jargon or regionaluse. The term may not generally be understood even within those contexts." -Wiktionary
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:List_of_protologisms

I found serious proposals for new words here, such as
sphone: noun [Garrett Jones] - A shape formed by spinning a cone intotetraspace, around its symmetry axis. Can also be formed by connected allthe points on the surface of a sphere to a point some distance away from thesphere in tetraspace, with the point being upsilon or delta from the centerof the sphere. It is the analog of the cone in realmspace. (sphone = sphere+ cone).

And some very good ones:
thanatolotry: Worship of death, a trait attributable to suicide bombers and devil worshippers.

One can sort it all out by topic, too. In searching by topic, I found allsorts of true gems:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:List_of_protologisms_by_topic#Overuse_terms
faux-mo: When a generation lacking any clear, unique identity attempts (in inconsistant, questionably sincere and argueably futile ways) to label and define itself and/or it's cultural elements. This is generally characterized by a sort of quiet desperation, thinly veiled hostility and confusion.

Some people think oddly:
Thursdaily: Every Thursday

Sideslappers
lockblocker: A person who prevents the unlocking of a his or her cardoor by pulling the door handle at the same time the driver presses theunlock buttona.
lesbosexual: n. [Note: Coined by Mark Simpson in Sex Terror: EroticMisadventures in Pop Culture (Harrington Park Press, 2002).] A non-stylishgay man.

I coined the next one long ago. Now it has a home.
masochismo: n. [Masochism + Machismo] The idea that ones masculinity is tied to the capacity to endure self-inflicted pain.

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