Word Nerd: 5 made-up words that are now part of the English language

If I were to ask you to say some made-up English words, what would be the first one you’d think of? The first that came to my mind was ‘Google’. But it’s more adapted than made-up. Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin took an existing word, googol, and changed the spelling. Today, when we use google as a verb, its meaning is unrelated to the original word. But what about the original word – where did that come from?

1. Googol

As you know, it refers to a mindbogglingly huge number – 10 raised to the power of 100. In other words, 1 followed by 100 zeroes, a.k.a 10 duotrigintillion (more mindboggling numbers here – knock yourself out). The word googol was coined in 1920 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta, nephew of Edward Kasner, US mathematician and author of Mathematics and the Imagination (published 1940). Little Milton also helpfully invented the word ‘googleplex’, which is 10 raised to the power of googol. I can understand a trillion, or even quadrillion. Beyond that, I feel like the rabbits in Watership Down, who referred to all numbers greater than four as 1,000, because rabbits are not very good at counting.

2. Nylon

It’s probably the first thing you use every morning, when you brush your teeth. It refers to a synthetic material that can be produced as fibers, bristles, molded shapes, or film. It was developed in the 1930s by scientists at DuPont, the company that also gave us Lycra and Kevlar. The inventors of nylon also invented the word ‘nylon’.

Above: The Dupont Experimental Station in Wilmington (in the US state of Delaware), is not only the birthplace of nylon, but also home to some of the most important discoveries of the modern chemical industry

3. Cybernetics

This word was invented in 1948 by the US mathematician and MIT professor Norbert Wiener, to refer to the “entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal”. It is derived from the Greek kybernetike, meaning governance. Of course, the word has spawned other words that now pervade our culture. For example, cyberpunk (cybernetic punk) is a subgenre of science fiction sometimes described as the high-tech low life, and it may feature cyborgs (cybernetic organisms) such as Spiderman’s foe, Dr. Octopus.

Above: Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus in the 2004 film Spider-Man 2

4. Halitosis

If marketing success is defined as persuading people to buy something they didn’t know they needed, then ‘halitosis’ has got to be one of the most successful campaigns ever. The word means stinky breath, which has certainly existed for centuries. But in the 1880s, the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company, which marketed Listerine, invented this medical-sounding word that defined bad breath as a problem that could ruin your career prospects or marriage. Like ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’, the word ‘halitosis’ is derived from the Latin word for breathing (halare is to breathe, and halitus is breath). Listerine, originally marketed as a general antiseptic, began to be sold as the solution to the frightening problem of halitosis. Sales shot up from around $100,000 in 1920 to $4 million in 1927. The success of ‘halitosis’ led to a marketing frenzy peppered with medical-sounding words such as bromodosis (the smell of sweaty feet) and homotosis (lack of nice home furnishings).

5. Crunk

It means exciting or fun – a crunk party. Nobody knows the origin of the word. One theory is that it’s a combination of ‘crazy’ and ‘drunk’, while another is that it’s the past participle of ‘crank’ (grammatically speaking, it’s not). ‘Crunk’ can also refer to a person who is energized or excited. And of course it refers to a type of dance.

:

Got any words to add to the list? Leave a comment below or email us!

By: Uma Asher