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

whether a word is
good or bad,

they don't really
have a good reason.

So they say something like,
"Because...grammar!"

(Laughter).

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

don't tell anybody.

But the word "grammar", actually,
there are two kinds of grammar.

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

and 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.

And 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,

they're not like traffic laws.

They're 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, I think it's
going to be cold.

Take a hoodie. Don't forget
to obey the law of gravity."

Nobody says this.

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 new
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 in English.

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.

This is called compounding.

Words in English are like Lego,
if you use enough force,

you can put any two
of them together.

(Laughter).

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 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" used to be an
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 you can
kind of 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 these 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.

So the words don't have
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 today 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 right now.

English has no age limit.

Go ahead, start making
words today.

Send them to me,

and I will put them in my
online dictionary word bank.

Thank you so much.

(Applause).