Neologism

A newly coined word — minted deliberately, where the language available has no word for the thing that needs saying.

Sometimes a concept has no name, and the nameless concept keeps getting collapsed into the nearest word that already exists, which is not it. Coining is the repair. This canon coins a good deal — the Lexicon carries many of them — because much of what it is describing has no settled English name (The LIØNSBERG Lexicon · Language · Working Exploration of Concepts Missing From English · Word Tools).

Coining is powerful precisely because it is dangerous, and the dangers are worth naming. A new word can hide rather than reveal — inventing a term instead of understanding the thing. It can exclude, since every coinage is a small barrier at the door for someone who does not have it yet (The vocabulary ladder · The grandmother test · The Floor And The Ceiling Of The Kit). It can capture, quietly taking an old meaning and putting a new one in its place (Semantic Capture). And it can simply be an author's pleasure in their own invention (Author's Voice Is Sovereign · Elision).

So the canon keeps disciplines around it rather than forbidding it. Coin only where no existing word carries the sense, and say what the existing words fail to do (A Word on Words · Naming). Give the new word one clear home page rather than letting it live in many partial uses (One canonical home per concept · Name the Concept in the Singular). Gloss it at first meeting, every time, so the barrier is low. Treat it as current best understanding and be willing to retire it (Members · The Wiki Reflects the Present · Everything Is Current Best Understanding). And remember that a coinage in one language is not a coinage in another — the sense, not the letters, is what travels (On translating · Cross-Cultural Pattern Translation · Essences, Renderings, And Ineffable Referents).

A coinage is also not the same as a Word Tool, though the two are often confused here. A neologism is a new word; a Word Tool is any word consciously used as an instrument pointing past itself, old or new.

Also called: coinage · a new word Stands on: Language · Naming · Word Tools Opens onto: The LIØNSBERG Lexicon · Semantic Capture · Working Exploration of Concepts Missing From English · On translating · Naming Forms · The vocabulary ladder · A Word on Words · The Language of LIØNSBERG In play: the Workshop — the question asked before a new word is allowed into the canon Sources: Neologism (root page, stub — the definition and the note that the Lexicon holds many) · The LIØNSBERG Lexicon (root page) · lionsberg.wiki: Neologism Open: First articulation of the disciplines: the canon defines the word and nowhere says when coining is warranted or who may do it. · No page lists the canon's own coinages, so there is no way to audit how many there are or which have earned their place.