That's Mr. Clumpy to you.
And Asteronotus cespitosus to all his other friends.
A big guy.The size of my hand. The mother of all nudibranchs. He was suspended - not in disbelief -- but in the ocean. I thought I was seeing things.
Well.
I was.
He was really there.
The rough surge dislodged him. I took his picture then placed him in a safe coral encrusted nook. It was the least I could do.
For Clumpy.
4:30 am and 74 degrees.
Words.
Can't live with 'em.
Can't live without 'em.
I love to make up words. You know those people who the literary world refers to as destroying our language because they do ridiculous things like making verbs out of nouns and rearranging letters?
I'm one of those people. Those scum of the earthers. And not just verbal either -- I'm getting published so that makes me twice as bad! My bizarre wordsmithing abilities will go down in print if not in some obscure alternative dictionary.
You want examples? Ok. Here they are.
Someone commented on one of the blogs recently about the word impactful.
They said impactful was not a word.
I beg to differ. I use it all the time.
Ergo.
It is a word.
Maybe they just mean it's a BAD word. I think that's cruel name-calling. I mean what did impactful ever do to you?
Oh. This is a good one: Flustrated. Sounds like a hen ruffling her feathers doesn't it?
Flustrated. I know it's not in Webster's -- but it should be -- It means upset.
More determined than flustered but less specific than frustrated.
Flustrated.
Hey, I've heard other people use this so I'm obviously not alone.
Then there's my personal favorite.
Jelliose. I love this word. Ever seen a melted sea jelly on the beach? Not quite liquid but fairly dead? Jelliose. No longer jello. Something that used to be firm and wriggly. Jelliose.(This can also refer to Jello salads past their prime)
Then there are the times I throw my words in a blender and hit "grind." You know. Those words combined with other words that should be words?
For example.
Having trouble deciding who you were in a past life?
You are karmcommittaled. This is when your inner essence -- your Karma -- can't make up its mind. Your Yin and Yang are in a state of indecisiveness. Similar to contracommittaled. That's when your inner essence is split evenly in two different directions.
Of course, you realize none of this has to make any sense. That's the beauty of it. Just like Clumpy.
Floating out in the ocean for no apparent reason. But.
He is fun to look at isn't he?
Well, I got to go.
Get coffeed.
Up.
What are your words?
Tell me please.
Posts
14 comments:
Oh! I just used a favorite. "Splurbled." As in "I splurbled Tom's Peppermint toothpaste all over the counter and had to clean it up." Also, while I'm not Jewish, I grew up in the NE and know a lot of Yiddish words. I butcher them though. Yiddish has the best words EVER.
My sister's word that we have all adopted is insinuendo. Isn't that a great word? Better than and insinuation, deeper than an inuendo . . . it's an insinuendo!! Yea!
Me? I tend to not make up words, but pronounce them differently (usually the English way.) People look at me funny when I say advertisment (ad-VER-tiss-ment), leisure (LEH-zure), patriotism (PAT-tree-uh-ti-sum), and numerous others.:)
I just think they sound cooler that way.:)
Maprilynne
What really cracks me up is that English is the one language that thrives on just what those complainers wail about! That's the beauty of English, its ability to flow and change and adopt foreign words.
I don't join to words, but I'll use a world sort of inappropriately so as to give a different meaning, the one I want. I think it works most of the time.
Those old stick in the muds!
Oh, I forgot to mention: I have to laugh when someone gets upset because I add one of your standard suffixes or prefixes to a word, and they can't find it in the dictionary. So they assume it is wrong! LOL!
English changes, folks!
Yeah I totally agree. I like to think it's the same as natural selection and evolution.
Words change over time.
That's what makes it interesting.
One of my English teachers told my class not to make up words.
One of the students replied that Shakespere invented words.
So the English teacher revised the statement to be: "You can't make up words until you've been published."
I guess that gives you creative license! I enjoyed your words.
Hmmmm, I'm not known for making up new words. I am, however, known for using the wrong words (think back to Maui, Pat, and you'll remember what it's like talking to me in person)!!
My mind is often 10 steps ahead of my mouth and because I don't have the benefit of editing the way I do on the page, I often say things that sound totally stupid.
We're using the Queen's English here. Therefore, if I say it, it's a word! I have a dictionary on my website. You can get to it from the left-side navigation link by clicking on 'Kimber-Babble.' Not listed are some adjectives like 'Pesteration' and 'sloppery.' Hey, when you write science fiction or fantasy, especially, you have to make up words! Heck, you have to make up whole languages!
Words just want to be free.
Some people analize over the language.
Pat! I do the same thing and have to admit to looking over my shoulder, worrying some literati grammarian will call me out. I choose to view it as creative license. I tend to take nouns and turn them into adjectives. But "flustrated," "jelliose," well, that's in a whole different league. I need to be more creative.
Amy
I am especially fond of pairing adversarial adjectives and adverbs together.
Matching Animal characteristics to people's emotions.
"His ant-like frugality..."
Like I said, I use words sort of inappropriately for effect. For example, "He snarked up an eyebrow." You know what I mean, right?
I hope you aren't too busy to blog, you haven't been posting a lot lately!
pajamaed. pajamad? pajama-ed?
Foody. As in wash your hands, they're all foody.
When my kids were infants: "Change him please, he's peed." Not he has. He is.
I can't think of any of the top of my head that I've made up but my husband keeps laughing at my words. He says I most often do strange tenses of existing words.
It might have something to do with my parents learning English as a second language. Their first language wasn't even an official language- Pennsylvania Deutch, a german dialect. Leading to such mangles phrases as "The milk as all" and "Plug that out."
And I chuckled at Maprilynne's comment because my husband was raised by ex-pat Brits and he always pronounces things that way!!!
WW - Yeah I have been planning my first trip to New York - I'll blog about it!
Very exciting!
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