Inventing your own words

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When I was little, I went through a phase when I'd invent my own words. I suppose some people, even NTs, do that for things that lack common names, like the ball or eagle on top of a flagpole, I took it one step further. I'd invent a word, then come up with a definition and/or the object that the word represented. Most of them were forgotten when I grew out of that phase. But these are some example that got stuck, and are still jokingly used in my family.

karagorni: kah-rah-GORE-nih: (adjective): 1. Group of objects not consisting of or itself being a unified set or collection. (This box of crayons is karagorni, because it was never a box set, just random crayons thrown together into one container.) 2. One or more objects not belonging to a unified set or collection. (Example: This crayon is karagorni, because I found it at school and put it into an existing box with other crayons.)

doytell: DOY-tell: (noun): A metal pipe 3 feet long and 2 inches in diameter, with many faucet handles attached to the outside of it along its length. (I found a doytell in a pile of scrap plumbing at a construction site.)

gremometer: GREE-moh-MEE-ter: (noun): A unit of length that converts to 80 feet or 24 meters. (The gremometer was created to give convenient numbers for measuring distances between landmarks and locations in a small town or a city neighborhood.)

I see some vague convenience of the word "karagorni" for objects that are grouped together but are not a set or a collection, like books on a library shelf or envelopes in a junk mail pile. Probably for some other situations too. Maybe it can even find some use in computer programming. For example, for a linked list containing objects that are used in unrelated methods of a class.

But I'm amazed how in the world I came up with a doytell, a non-existent object vaguely resembling a piece of plumbing! It will probably be useless if it did exist; after all, what exactly would you use a doytell for, anyway? And yet, I singlehandedly came up with it in my mind and on paper. Heck, I'd probably have made one in AutoCAD Mechanical, if I had access to it and knew how to use it back then.

The etymology for a gremometer is more mundane. I needed a way to measure distances between my preschool, my home, the park, the candy store, etc. Feet gave numbers too big for me to comprehend, and miles gave fractions or decimals that I didn't know how to work with. The gremometer, on the other hand, gave whole numbers between 1 and 100.

As I grew past kindergarten, I mastered the use of proper words and learned how to make do without my made-up ones. As a result, something karagorni turned into a cumbersome phrase "randomly grouped and unrelated", doytells faded into history, and gremometers gave way to feet and miles. These words now only occasionally resurface in inside jokes among my family members.

So anyone else done this as a child? And please share the words if you feel comfortable doing so.

I used to make up words too. I've forgotten most of them, but here are the ones that I do remember:

Iyaya (EE-yah-yah) - An exclamation of pain or surprise. (This one used to annoy the heck out of my siblings because I'd use it so often.)

Adorability (uh-DOHR-uh-bihl-ih-tee) - Portmanteau of "adorable" and "ability". It is a measurement of cuteness. Someone or something with high levels of adorability is considered very cute. (ex. The So So Happy plushies rank high on adorability.)

Comcrasher: a computer that crashes all the time. Comes from "computer" and "crash."

When I was a kid my mom and younger sister were laughing and yakking at the lunch table about being "dominary" .

Then my mom turned to me and explained that 'dominary' isnt "a real word- it isnt in the dictionary", but that if it DID exist it would mean "having a propensity to dominate others".

I was amazed that it WASNT a real word because it sounded like a real word.

It lasted as a running joke for years ( "if you eat your peas you will grow up to be strong and dominary!").

It still amazes me that "dominary' isnt in the dictionary. You would think that it would be a needed word!

I have a couple of made up words that I use when they seem to be needed. What is strange is that when I don't need them, I have trouble remembering them.

This is incredibly funny. I especially love "doytell."

Beal = to run a very short distance (usually between 6 inches and 4 feet, but it can be a little more. I think if it's more than that I'd call it "beal 2")

Oh easily of course.

Ripplic -- A swimmers delight in jumping into a pool of utterly still water.

Fargamarga -- something said in place of profanity. Usually said VERY slowly.

Others ive heard before, Craptacular, Funintrestoying (Fun, Interesting, Annoying).

I know I have done this, but can't recall any examples at the moment.

I certainly do have the opposite thing, which is becoming agitated when people invent words when perfectly good words already exist. My current pet peeve is people who use "resacredize" when "resacralize" already exists and means the same thing.

Catten: A half-grown cat.

Foodable: Satisfying and edible, but unremarkable otherwise.

Fishker (verb): A cat's brushing your skin with its whiskers when it is curious about what you are doing and trying to get your attention.

Bluescreen; mental bluescreen: A shutdown. From "Blue screen of death", the Windows crash screen.