Go ahead, make up new words!

I'm a lexicographer.

I make dictionaries.

And my job as a lexicographer

is to try to put all the words
possible into the dictionary.

My job is not to decide what a
word is, that is your job.

Everybody who speaks english

decides together what's a word
and what's not a word.

Every language is just a group of people
who agree to understand each other.

Now sometimes when people
are trying to decide

if a word is good
or bad,

they don't really
have a good reason.

They say something like,
"Because...grammar!"

(Laughter).

And I don't actually care
about grammar too much.

don't tell anyone

But the word grammar--

actually, there are two
kinds of grammar.

There's the kind of grammar that kind
of lives inside your brain.

If you're a native speaker of a language or
a good speaker of a language,

it's the unconscious rules that you follow
when you speak that language.

And this is what you learn when
you learn language as a child.

Here's an example:

this is a Wug.

Right, it's a Wug.

Now there is another one.

There are two of these.

there are two...

(audience): Wugs.

Exactly! You know how to
make the plural of Wug.

That rule lives
in your brain.

You never had to be
taught this rule

You just understand it.

This is a experiment
that was invented

by a professor at Boston College
named Jean Berko Gleason

back in 1958.

So we've been talking
about this for a long time

Now these kinds of natural
rules that exist in your brain.

Theres aren't like traffic laws,

there more like laws of nature.

And nobody has to
remind you to obey

a law of nature, right?

When you leave the
house in the morning,

your mom doesn't say,

"Hey honey, it's going to be cold.

Take a hoodie, don't forget
to obey the law of gravity!"

Nobody says this.

(Laughter).

Now there are other rules

that are more about manners
than they are about nature.

So you can think of like
a word like a hat.

Once you know how hats work

nobody has to tell you,
"Don't wear hats on your feet."

What they have to tell you is,
"can you wear hats inside?

Who gets to wear a hat?

what are the kinds of
hats you get to wear?"

Those are more of the
second kind of grammar

that linguists often call usage
as opposed to grammar.

Now, sometimes people use
this kind of rules-based grammar

to discourage people from
making up words.

And I think that is, well, stupid.

So, for example, people
are always telling you,

"Be creative, make music
do art, invent things,

science and technology."

But when it comes to words,
they're like,

"Don't! No. Creativity stops right here,

whipper-snappers. Give it a rest."

(Laughter).

But that makes no sense to me.

Words are great.

We should have more of them.

I want you to make as many
new words as possible

and I'm going to tell you six ways

that you can use to make new words.

The first way is the simplest way:

basically, steal them from
other languages.

(Laughter).

Linguists call this borrowing,

but we never give the words back

so I'm just going to be honest
and call it stealing.

We usually take words
for things that we like,

like delicious food.

We took "cumquat" from Chinese.

We took "caramel" from French.

We also take words for cool things,
like "ninja", right?

We took that from Japanese,

which is kind of a cool trick cause
ninjas are hard to steal from.

(Laughter).

So another way that
you can make

words in English is by squishing
two other English words together.

It's called compounding.

Words in English are like legos,

if you use enough force,

you can put any two
of them together.

We do this all the time in English:

words like "heartbroken",
"bookworm", "sandcastle"

-- all are compounds.

So go ahead and
make words

like "duckface", just
don't make duckface.

(Laughter).

Another way you can
make words in English

is kind of like compounding,

but instead you use so much force

when you squish the words together
that some parts fall off.

So these are blend words,

Like "Brunch" is a blend of
"breakfast and lunch".

"Motel" is a blend of
"motor" and "hotel".

Who here knew that "motel"
was a blend word?

Yeah, that word is like so old
in English that lots of people

don't know that there
are parts missing.

"Edutainment" is a blend word
of "education" and "entertainment".

And of course "electrocute" is a
blend of "electric" and "execute".

You can also make words by
changing how they operate.

This is called functional shift.

You take one word that act
as one part of speech

and you change it into
another part of speech.

Okay, who here knew that "friend"

hasn't always been a verb?

"Friend" used to be noun
and then we verbed it.

Almost any word in
English can be verbed.

You can also take adjectives
and make them into nouns.

"Commercial" use to be an adjective
adjective and now it's a noun.

And of course, you can
"green" things.

Another way to make words
in English is back-formation.

You can take a word and squish
it down a little bit.

So for example, we had the word
"editor" before we had the word "edit".

"Edit" was formed from "editor".

Sometimes back-formations
sound a little silly:

bulldozers bulldoze,

butlers butle

and burglers burgle

(Laughter).

Another way to make
words in English

is to take the first letters
of something

and squish them together.

So National Aeronautics
and Space Administration

becomes NASA.

And of course you can do this
with anything--OMG!

So it doesn't matter how
silly the words are.

They can be really good
words of English.

"Absquatulate" is a perfectly
good word of English

"Mugwump" is a perfectly
good word of English.

Words don't have
to sound normal.

They can sound really silly.

Why should you
make words?

You should make words
because every word

is a chance to express your idea

and get your meaning across.

And new words grab
people's attention.

They get people to focus
on what you're saying

and that gives you a better chance
to get your meaning across.

A lot of people on the
stage have said,

"In the future, you can do this,

you can help with this,
you can help us explore,

you can help us invent."

You can make a new word now.

English has no age limit.

Go ahead, start making
words today.

Send them to me,

and I'll put them in my online
dictionary word-bank.

Thank you so much

(Applause).