A little bit of word fun

I recently stumbled upon a project where someone had used the word "stick-to-itiveness". Most of us know what the word means, tenacity, and believe it or not it’s actually in the dictionary.

Would ‘tenacity’ have worked just as well in place of "stick-to-itiveness" in the content? Probably. Would it have been as much fun? Maybe not.

When appropriate, a little word fun can liven up your content. Blog posts may be the most appropriate place for ‘made up’ words because they tend to be lighter and more personal.

Take care when using made up words to use them sparingly, one per post, and make sure the meaning is clearly understood within the context of the sentence. If it isn’t or you’re unsure, don’t use the word or find a way to incorporate the definition without pulling the plug on the fun.

For example,

Charlie really has stick-to-itiveness. His tenacity has taken him far.

Here’s a great site with an abundance of made up words. Best of all, they’re organized by category! http://www.unwords.com /

Here are a few favorites:

Cinemuck - the sticky stuff on the floor of movie theaters.

Blurple - a color that is the mix of blue and purple.

Smuffy - Used to describe weather that is foggy, cloudy, smoggy, and other forms all combined yet with no precipitation despite the fact that it looks like it will rain at any moment. Often this weather form makes it hard to breath.

At our house we’ve made up a few including:

Confuzzled - Somewhere between confused and befuddled.

If you have any great made up words, share her and/or post them on Unwords.com.

Last 5 posts by Annette

• KISS - The Smoochy Approach to Easy to Read Content - October 10th, 2008
• Tips to Quick Start Your Content - September 30th, 2008
• Overwhelmed by content - time yourself - September 21st, 2008
• 7 PLR Rewrite tips - September 12th, 2008
• Tired of "Writing" - Talk Your Content Instead - September 5th, 2008