What's your opinion on making up new words?

[RepresentingCaution]

If you are alive and you speak a living language, you are allowed to add whatever you want to that language.

 

[JayMark]

It wouldn't bother me reading it. It makes me think of a sales presenter showcasing a fabulous item.

Now if it was, "'There's more here if you need it,' she said, holding the pitcher up borglingkadoly," then I might be confused.

 

[tyler89558]

First of all, I'm not talking about inventing words for things that don't exist on earth. I'm talking about inventing new words just to use in narration or casual conversation. I heard once that as long as other people understand what a word means, then there's no reason not to use it. Just a minute ago, I wrote this sentence: "'There's more here if you need it,' she said, holding the pitcher up offeringly," and I was surprised to see that "offeringly" isn't a real word. But I feel like the word is clear enough that nobody is going to be confused as to what it means, so even if the dictionary doesn't recognize it, I may as well use it anyway.

What do you guys think? Not about my example specifically, but about making up new words in general?

At the end of the day, language is just communication. If you get what the author means (or at least you think you do), then the job’s done, made up word or not.

 

[Viator]

Language always changes, so offering up new words now and then is the norm. The key is to do it in a way that is hardly noticed. If it starts to interrupt the flow of your work when read by your audience, you've likely done too much. You can Also make up words so often, that even if your readers can technically understand you, it becomes difficult to read as you have eroded much of the context readers ground themselves in.

This happens often in fantasy works where the author tries to make everything new in an effort to break from the common narrative. The readers have to work much harder to understand the basis for the world and grow fatigued.

If you make up new words it's okay, but if you do it right it will go largely unnoticed.

 

[ShrimpShady]

We make up words all the time. You know, like hawk tuah skibidi gyatt rizz. It's perfectly fine. Don't let dead old white guy authors be the only ones we validate when they make up bullshit words when writing.

In my WIP, I describe a cat's fluffy tail as caterpillarian even though that's not a real word because "like a caterpillar" instead reads weak as fuck, or like a weird Kendrick Lamar x Yakuza fic.

 

[Jerynboe]

To paraphrase a book I read recently,
“Did you understand what I meant? Then it’s a real word.”
If it communicates as intended, then it’s a perfectly cromulent word.

That said, something deep within me shuddered when I read offeringly. It feels off as a word; wrong, despite being perfectly functional. It’s like a verbal uncanny valley where I know exactly what is meant but I also know it’s not a formally accepted word and that bothers me.

 

[georgelee5786]

I dislike it in a published book unless it is dialogue. Adding fake words is just jarring for me personally.

 

[crowTHEpoet]

i like it
as long as you have a small "dictionary" at the end or beginning of the story (or include it inside)

 

[HiroXV]

Yes, honestly, nothing wrong with it. I love making up new words, especially when I write fantasy I often make new expressions or phrases to add more emphasis (still didn't do it in this story), like, "holy *insert name of random fantasy god*!!!", it adds to realism and in writing gives a nice flavour to writing