: Re: Are there any general rules or guidelines for using neologism or newly coined word (Cutease)? Recently, I came across a beautiful word 'Cutease', defined on Urban dictionary as: Cute, sassy, saucy

@Connie138

Vote Up Vote Down

I think there is one golden rule here: your coinage in the story must follow the conventions and motivations of real-world neologisms.

We create new words for the following reasons:

An equivalent word to express the idea is absent from the lexicon. 'Telephone' is an example of this; before the object existed, the word did not.
As word-play. Examples might be portmanteau words, malapropisms, rhyming slang, euphemisms...
For brevity, particularly with a commonly used word. Consider 'Brexit' as a contraction of 'Britain's exit (from the European Union.)'

To include the word 'Cutease' in your story.

Sorry, I just gagged as I typed that word: it is so perversely saccharine that I can only imagine - with horror - what honeycombed invention would call for its extended use.

To include that word in a story, you will need to:

Establish its roots, possibly with an origin story in which the word is first coined, or alternatively by placing a character in a position of inferior knowledge.
Provide adequate need for that word to fall into common usage in your constructed world.

(0)

Login to post a comment!