Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Qizwix

I made a post on Facebook about a week ago: "I want to create the word 'qizwix', specifically to be able to friggin' crush people in Scrabble. What should its definition be?"  I got two responses, but they were excellent.

"It should definitely be what happens when you burp and you had been drinking soda pop and it comes out your nose and makes it burn. There's got to be a name for that and qizwix sounds like a good one."

"It could be for a situation in which somebody lies either out of malice or a joke and the lie turns out to be true, much to the embarrassment and chagrin of the liar."

I loved both of the answers.  Somehow, they both totally made sense.  They felt right.  Those situations both sounded like 'qizwix'.  If, in 5 years, 'qizwix' was in the dictionary, I would be proud.  Of course I would be proud that I invented a word, but I would also be proud to see a word gain acceptance because of defining a situation that was previously undescribed, and doing so because it sounded good.

I have said it before and I will say it again: language is alive.  It grows and evolves.  It cannot be chained down.  Every generation will change its language, and it is no less real or fake than the version of the language it modifies.

In case you were wondering, 'qizwix' is pronounced like chizz-wicks.  How would you define it?

2 comments:

  1. I've actually seen the latter situation happen on LL.

    Slashdot airs a story, and some LLer posts it and says "which LLer hacked fb and got all the details of women?"

    Turns out it was a user that got banned that did this. Original Poster had no idea of this.

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  2. I'd say it sounds like a word you could apply to situations that make no sense at all, came out of nowhere, and leaves you thinking "What the hell just happened??". Answer: "Who knows, just one of these qizwix moments..." :) Interesting articles by the way!

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