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Paperwork: The dictionary has plenty of words, but I’d sure like to add one more · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Paperwork. The dictionary has plenty of words, but I'd sure like to
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  add one more. This article is being read by an
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  automated voice brought to you by Everlet. I have a new mission.
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  A writer’s challenge. I want to invent a new word.
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  You can blame this itch on Tony Dunnell, a freelance fiction and
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  nonfiction writer, who wrote a piece for wordsmarts.com titled 10 Words Invented
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  by Famous Writers. Search that headline on the website to see the
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  full article.
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  Dunnell explains: Language has always been a living, breathing entity, and literature
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  has long been one of the major driving forces in its evolution.
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  Throughout literary history, authors have not only kept certain words alive and
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  popularized others, but they have also invented entirely new words to suit
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  specific circumstances.
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  In some cases, they may have been trying to capture a precise
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  meaning, emotion, or concept but found the weighty collection of words in
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  the dictionary lacking and so they improvised by creating something new.
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  Other terms were invented through the sheer joy of wordplay and whimsy,
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  playing with sounds and syllables to make a word that sings. And
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  some were born of technological necessity, to describe something new or something
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  yet to exist.
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  Dunnell came up with 10 examples with interesting backstories. Let me share
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  a few.
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  I’m old enough to remember the movie La Dolce Vita. Writer and
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  director Federico Fellini created a character named Paparazzo, an aggressive photographer. So
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  it’s believed the origin of the word paparazzi came from that script.
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  Sir Thomas More wrote a story in 1516 titled Utopia about an
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  imaginary island with the same name that had an ideal social, legal
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  and political system. The word is still used to describe an ideal
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  society. Dunnell notes there is some debate whether More’s story was for
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  serious thought or was it satire.
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  We all know that a scrooge is selfish, miserly and irritated by
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  holidays. Well thank you Charles Dickens for creating the character Ebenezer Scrooge
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  in his tale A Christmas Carol. Dunnell says that the name sounds
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  like scrouge, which means to squeeze or press against, plus screw is
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  an old English word for miser.
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  It is no surprise to me that a lasting word would come
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  from Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky, which is full of crazy words and
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  is in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass. We still use one
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  of those words. Carroll combined the words chuckle and snort to create
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  chortle.
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  Dunnell explains the logic used to create the word pandemonium. John Milton
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  needed a name for the capital of hell for his poem Paradise
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  Lost. So he combined the Greek word pan, meaning all or together,
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  with daimonion, or relating to demons.
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  It literally meant place of all demons, which sounds like a pretty
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  chaotic place to be, hence the word’s evolution to describe any scene
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  of wild chaos or uproar, Dunnell said.
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  The next time you refer to someone as a yahoo have a
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  little gratitude for Jonathan Swift, who created all kinds of characters in
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  his novel Gulliver’s Travels. He created the word Yahoo to describe a
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  race of humanlike folk who were crude and uncultured and brutish.
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  Dunnell did a nice job of highlighting interesting words that have lasting
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  appeal, and I’ve seen enough to accept the challenge to invent a
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  word. I’m not talking about words that just get mangled every day.
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  I think that’s something we all do now and then. And sometimes
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  those words stick.
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  Such as the word iffity. That’s a word our family finds more
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  telling than the proper word, iffy. When you say something is iffy,
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  you mean it’s uncertain or doubtful or unreliable. But we like to
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  say iffity. That word is now part of our family vernacular thanks
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  to my sister-in-law Wendy. It’s easier to use the word than try
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  to correct her. Besides, it clearly means the same thing but has
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  a bit more zing or panache or flourish.
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  I’m not sure how to go about inventing a word. The research
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  shared by Dunnell offers some clues, but I won’t be playing with
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  Latin or Greek. I think it best that I just let it
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  happen. I need to let my new word just come with a
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  slip of the tongue or twist of a verb or the punch
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  of an adjective.
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  It’s not going to be easy. You might even say my chances
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  of success are iffity.
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  Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was
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  a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork
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  email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail the NewsTribune, 426 Second St, La
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  Salle, IL 61301.