When does a word become a word? Do a certain number of people have to have similar definitions to a guttural mix of sounds before we call it "a word"? Is there some board of directors that sits atop some kind of Dictionarial Shrine hearing cases one after the other over why a new mix of letters and sounds should now be considered a word?
In the last 10 years the word "d'oh" made it in to the dictionary. This is not a word as much as a cry that was by and large credited to Homer Simpson. But now it's in the dictionary, so I guess it's a word.
English is baffling enough without knowing the fact that cartoon characters have some power over it's creation.
A website that I frequent (which also happens to be a cartoon) has a propensity for making up words at will. A few examples of this would be "wood daver" (some kind of craft made with pine cones and peanut butter), a "stnank" (a mistake), and one of my personal favorites, "burninate" (you guessed it, to burn something..).
Are all these now "words"? If I approached a black robed member of this dictionarium and threatened to burninate him if he didn't come up with a word that rhymes with purple would he know what I'm talking about? Probably not.
I wish math were the same way. I wish I could just make up "new math" and have it mean something. I woulda done a lot better in Calculus if that were the case.
x ~~ (y2 @^ b - 4) = very yes.
Oh well.
