Mindful Content: hubricariousness (n)

Updated: Dec 1, 2020

Blog 3, #marcuscoates, #mindfulcontent #newwords #inventivelanguage #creativewriting

image: Jessica Pamp (Unsplash)

Shakespeare Did it on the Fly

When it comes to using language, the great English bard, Shakespeare, knew a thing or two about putting his point across creatively. In any Shakespearean play, the language flows, as characters express their hatred, love or jealousy. His dramatis personae come to life through poetic soliloquies and monologues full of humour, rage and pathos … and banter in crisp exchanges that keep the audience engaged and delighted. Shakespeare’s plays are wonderful because the language is so rich and colourful, and he always seemed to have the right word for the occasion. And if he didn’t have the right word … well, he made them up. He never suffered the fate of hubricariousness because he kept his plays fresh and accessible for all of his audience.

According to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shakespeare is attributed with making up over 1,700 words - many still in common usage: he combined words, changed nouns into verbs, added prefixes or suffixes, and so on. Shakespeare can be thanked for such everyday commonplace words as bedroom (n), downstairs (adv), eyeball (n) critic (n), hurry (v), manager (n) and gossip (v), and such phrases as ‘cruel to be kind’, ‘the clothes make the man’, 'jealousy is the green-eyed monster', 'wild-goose chase' and ‘it’s all Greek to me’ (www.shakespeare.org.uk ).

The Oxford Dictionary (OED)

That’s the beauty of English. The English language accepts and keeps accepting new words to describe actions, emotions, people, and places. According to the Oxford Dictionary, more than 400 words have been added to the dictionary in 2020 to date. Among those words, you will find A-game (n) – one’s highest level of performance; athleisure (n) – comfortable, casual clothing or footwear; brewstered (adj) – wealthy, very rich, well off; and ‘arr’ (int) – the speech of pirates. And that's before the full rash of new Covid-19-related words find their way into the dictionary (www.public.oed.com ). 'brewstered', incidentally, has its etymology in a 1985 movie called Brewster's Millions, starring Richard Pryor as Montgomery Brewster; a man who has to spend $30,000,000 in 30 days to inherit $300,000,000 ... fascinating that a 1985's expression is only now gaining entry to the OED.

Quarantine Wordplay

During these quarantine isolation months, many new words have been added. Seth Myers on The Late Night Show read out some of the following ones that are making the rounds. 'Quarantini' – like a Martini, but drank alone; 'World Traveler' – someone who Facetimes their friends from each room of their house or apartment; ‘Skype n Gripe’ – wherein you call a friend and spend an hour telling them how awful your family are; 'Yard Jerk' – a friend who’s always complaining about being locked indoors … but you know they have a big yard and are always in it, hanging out in the pool or their hammock. And one that I can relate to ‘carbio’ – which is when you start doing a home workout and end up eating instead; as in: "Man, I did another carbio session ... I did five push-ups, but then found myself in the fridge eating anything I could get my hands on."

Trawling Merriam Webster

On www.merriamwebster.com, users submit their favourite words they have heard recently. Nonversation, unkeyboardinated, E-quaintance and cyberchondriac caught my eye. These words are great because not only are they clever alterations of existing words, but they actually convey meaning for everyday situations. I mean, how many times have you entered into a conversation with a colleague and halfway through realized they are just waffling without giving you content? Or you spend a morning retyping emails and reports because you can’t seem to hit the right keys on the keyboard? And an E-quaintance is someone you know only online ("Who's this Diane?" "Oh, don't worry, she's just an e-quiantance."); and a cyberchondriac spends all their time looking up illnesses online and thinking they have the ones they read about … very Woody Allen and very Covid-19 relevant.

Foreign Flavors

And of course, how boring the English language would be without our heavy borrowings from foreign and dead languages. I use the expression modus operandi so often these days, I’ve almost convinced myself I know Latin. And of course, everyone loves a bit of German schadenfreude (go on, admit it, you know you do!)Then there’s annus mirabilis (Latin) – a remarkable year; carpe diem (Latin) – seize the day; au naturel (French) – the most simple or natural way; au fait (French) – a good or detailed knowledge; and cognoscenti (Italian) – well informed about something (www.lexico.com ).

"So remember, if you want an annus mirabilis, then carpe diem and repeat; keep it au naturel and become au fait with an area of interest and you could become one of the cognoscenti.”

Do We Actually Need so Many Words?

With over a million words in the language already, do we need to add a 1,000 more every year? Well, yes. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Revisionist Editor, Mathew Bladen, in his article on revising the entry ‘spirit’ for the 2020 edition, states that the word has over 163 senses, phrases, compounds, and so on associated with it, and mentions how difficult it was to pin down a precise meaning for its usage (www.public.oed.com ). He goes on to say that this is not even the word with the most variants. So, yes, we can always do with adding more precise meaning to our everyday usage.

What’s the Criteria?

So, what are the criteria for adding new words to the language and getting them accepted by dictionary revisionists and linguists? Well, according to the people at Merriam Webster, a word gets into a dictionary when it is used by many people who all agree it means the same thing. That’s it! There are many ways to make a new word - add a prefix, a suffix, nick one from a foreign language, turn a noun into a verb, squash two words together to form a compound, etc ... but what counts is to make it memorable and user-friendly and get people using it.

For the record, I’m adding ‘hubricariousness’ to the lexicon. This word stems from hubris (n) – excessive pride or self-confidence; and precariousness (n) – the state of being dangerously likely to fall or collapse. Add these together, and you get ‘hubricariousness’ (n) – putting yourself in a situation where you are likely to fall through excessive self-confidence. This can be used in adjectival form ‘hubricarious’ (adj) and also as an adverb ‘hubricariously’ (adv). For example:

“That boy’s hubricariousness will be the end of him.”

“If you carry on living hubricariously, I’m leaving. That's a fact.”

“Your hubricarious lifestyle has left us all in despair.”

My Modus Operandi

Now to make my new word stick, I’ll take the advice of the folks at Merriam Webster: I plan on dropping it into conversations and emails at every opportunity I get, no matter how tenuous the connection to the conversation or correspondence - and I’ll sit back and see if anyone notices this is just a made-up word. I’ll say it with confidence and look surprised if no one has heard of the word before. And the real test of whether my new word gains traction will be if other people start using it in their conversations. Voila! A new word enters the world! And who knows, if enough people start using my word, maybe I’ll see it appear in the Oxford Dictionary or Merriam Webster one day. If it does … well, you now know who to attribute the word to.

Hubricarious, or not hubricarious, that is the question:

So remember, next time you’re feeling a bit tongue-tied or can’t quite find the right word for the right occasion, don’t be down on yourself, just take a leaf out of Shakespeare’s playbook and just make it up as you go along! Don’t be afraid of hubricariousness: fortune favours the bold … or at least those willing to take linguistic chances. Ask anyone at the OED or Merriam Webster.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London