Friday 25 March 2011

Word Challenge

A few years ago I had a great boss and we had such fun trying to influence our workplace. For example, we had a new manager who said no to any of our suggestions. P came up with the idea that we needed to influence him subtly. The manager was a Wolves FC fan, so we dressed for our proposal meeting completely in orange and black. Would you believe it worked! The manager must have seen us as friends not foes.

A while later we decided to make up a word and introduce it to the organisation. The challenge was to see how long it took for the Chairman to use our invented word. Surprisingly it didn’t take very long at all. The word was “vertigate”, meaning delegate upwards. The chairman was heard to say, ‘I have no one to vertigate that problem to.’

So to the challenge. See if you can make up your own plausible word and use it in your writing, blog post, Facebook entry, etc and see how long it takes for someone else to adopt it. Oh and don't forget to tell me about it.

12 comments:

  1. I love this idea!! My kids always made up words when they were small. One that stuck was 'complaintive.' As in: I don't mean to be complaintive, but is dinner almost ready?

    I'll have to see if I can come up with one...

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  2. Lol, what a great idea! Am going to think of one now. We can all becomes Shakespeares and expand the English language. Makes me think of Blackadder, the scene where he meets Samuel Johnson, who'd just finished his dictionary, and Blackadder makes up all those long words?

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  3. Glad I've amused you girls. 'Disnitigrators' is one of my favourite family words. It sounds so much better than windscreen wipers! Have fun and let me know how you get on. Mx

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  4. Yes Lacey, it was a fun time in my working life. Mx

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  5. oh now there's a challenge... I'm sure I'm always using random words. We use 'wittering' over on LJ. And was wondering whether to change my blog name to Wittering of a mad woman, because I've noticed a lot of people use 'Rambling'.

    Okay - my word, and I know someone else over on LJ who uses it too... is Witter/Wittering. :D

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  6. I was off line all yesterday due to a power cut and although in a way it felt nice and sooo quiet, I felt as if something had been amputated.

    Thank you for your comment Teresa. We use witter too. I think someone beat you to it as it's in my big Collins dictionary. Have another go please. I think some of these words spread by osmosis or twelfth monkey syndrome!

    Hope you are doing well with your writing. Mx

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  7. I play Scrabble when I go over to see my 90 year old mum, and spend most of the hour making up words that I am SURE are real but somehow they're never in the dictionary. Those dictionaries, huh, what do they know!

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  8. I love vertigate! If I didn't work from home on my own, I'd be using that a lot.

    Excellent idea. I will now go and mull over a cup of tea and see if I can come up with one...

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  9. Hi Cara - I know what you mean, I have some habitual typos and I think they should be in the dictionary as they look right to me! Mx

    Hi Kath - Ooo yes please, not many have taken up the challenge yet. Maybe I should have offered a prize! Mx

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  10. ADDITING!

    That's my word. I made it up in Nano 2006 when my editing was going to be adding words. Editing is usually referring to taking words away, but sometimes you need to bulk up a story, and that's where I made up additing :D And a friend uses it too. Watch out for me on my blog!

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  11. Well done Teresa that's a good one. I shall start using it immediately. Mx

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