Jabberwocky

I recently discovered Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary. Anyone can submit to and view words that have been submitted to the Open Dictionary. The service is to catalog words that have not yet appeared in dictionaries, either because they have only recently come into existence or because they are forehead slap-inducing stupid (do not fret; I shall, of course, elaborate).

In the spirit of democracy, I'm all for an open dictionary. You may or may not be aware, but putting together a dictionary is a political affair. There are liberal and conservative dictionaries. There are dictionaries that take pleasure in finding the cleverest, quirkiest, idiosyncrasies of living language. And there are dictionaries that obsessively seek to protect The King's English from those mean, nasty jerks: addition, permutation, evolution. For further information on this point, please see "Authority and American Usage," also know as "Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage" by David Foster Wallace, which is one of the most interesting pieces of non-fiction writing I have read in my life. "Did you know that probing the seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography reveals ideological strife and controversy and intrigue and nastiness and fervor on a nearly hanging-chad scale? [...] Did you know that U.S. lexicography even had a seamy underbelly?" No? Then go read the essay. Seriously. Even if that sort of thing doesn't appeal to you, David Foster Wallace was one smart, funny, entertaining man. He'll make it worth your while.

Point is, I think an open dictionary is all to the good. In theory. For instance, these words

—

isogram (noun) : a word or phrase in which no letter is repeated; minorly (adjective) : in a minor way; shapewear (noun) : underwear that is made with elastic nylon so that the wearer has a slimmer appearance; and smartphone (noun) : a phone (especially a mobile phone) that provides additional capabilities including Internet access and which has an operating system comparable to a desktop computer operating system—are all useful, logical additions to the language. However, these words—sturdability (noun) : sturdiness; globalistic (adjective) : concerning or encouraging globalism; and elaboratize (verb) : to make elaborate or complex—make me want to slap someone in the mouth. People, if you need to define a word by using a different form of the same word, there's already a word for the thing you are attempting to invent. Duh! In these cases, they are: sturdiness, global, and complicate. Id est, refudiate is not the coining of a new word, it is the garbling of two already-existing, perfectly serviceable ones. Also known as portmanteau. But hey. Why not just call it the Palin-Upchuck Phenomenon?