12 fantabulous made-up words
I write and edit for a living, so I often think of words as my currency. I love to share them, trade them, and stash them away for later use.
Though I don’t often get to invent words as part of my job, I love to read about words that others have created.
Below is a list of my favorite fictional words. You probably won’t find these in the Oxford English Dictionary any time soon, but let’s have some fun with them. Try using one in conversation with your co-workers or in your next staff meeting.
1. Beardspiration — a person whose beard is so inspiring, it causes others to grow beards of their own.
Example: That bartender’s goatee was truly a beardspiration.
2. Beertastrophe — an event that leads to an epic loss of beer.
Example: A fire at the brewery meant beertastrophe for the tri-state area.
3. Broetry — poetry for men.
Example: Thursdays are broetry night at Chili’s.
4. Corporatistical — a company policy enacted because of overdeveloped corporate egos.
Example: The new dress code is clearly corporatistical.
5. Deskorations — decorations purchased for your office that were selected to appear as if they were cool objects you had lying around the house.
Example: You’re right. That mini Zen garden would make a cool deskoration.
6. Inboxapocalypse — when you have more than 1,000 unread emails.
Example: I suggest you check your email while you’re on vacation or you’ll come back to an inboxapocalypse.
7. Pinstagram — a pinboard on Pinterest made up entirely of Instagram photos.
Example: Ally’s pinstagram photos were all of her dog wearing a tutu.
8. Scroogled — means to be screwed by Google’s page-ranking algorithms.
Example: Shady SEO practices can leave you scroogled.
9. Slacktivist — a person who supports causes in a lazy way.
Example: Kevin is such a slacktivist. He only donated to breast cancer research because he was going to buy a pink broom anyway.
10. Snappfu — a mistake that involves an app.
Example: In their latest snappfu, all the pictures in the directory were replaced with the company logo.
11. Stresscalation — when you pass on your stress to someone else during the day.
Example: Every conversation with Michelle leads to stresscalation.
12. Voluntold — forced volunteerism.
Example: Every summer, I voluntold at the hospital where my dad worked.
What are some of your favorite made-up words?
This article was first published on Ragan Communication’s PR Daily.
