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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Mildly Interesting
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I vote games like scrabble don't use made up words just because they can give you big points. In that case why not just allow your players to place down all their letters in any random order and call it legal? It scores more points, so why not, Big Scrabble?
Also, I'm also personally against the use of made up slang words that started appearing around the 2010s and are now in common use, or at least were in common use.
I think the point is rather that all words are made up. For the record you have my vote as well. I don't want nonsense words to be a part of the game, especially at tournament level.
But all words are made up words.
If thou wishes for thine language to remain unchanged, perhaps ye wish to speak thusly?
I've considered when a word is no longer "made up".
There's always some enlightened centrist claptrap about "all words being made up", which I think even they know is pedantic and not really a solution.
Then you have the Websters who intentionally annoint words prematurely, I'm certain for marketings sake. Every year they get some free press about adding surprising words. I don't really know who buys dictionaries on a regular basis, but someone must, so they must want to appear modern and get some free advertising while they're at it. In Short, you have early adopters who want to appear hip, and that seems wrong, too.
Finally you have the hard-ass who doesn't want anything new added. In my experience these people just get off on gatekeeping and pearl clutching. They don't think that slang is worthy and they want to be part of the ingroup who decides which words are "real". In these peoples opinion, if they're being consistent, words like "legit" shouldn't be a word, it's just slang for legitimate. So that seems wrong.
I think the only answer is perhaps time. I feel like a word needs to live as long as the average person before becoming "official" (whatever that means). Like, who knows if in 79 years "bussin" will still be a usable word. But then again, useable by whom? If the issue with slang is that it's too new and therefor only understood by a narrow group of people, can't the same complaint can be applied to highbrow difficult words that are only understood by the overeducated? Or technical words in niche areas of understanding? Can you really say that more people can define metempsychosis, or kentledge, than can define edgelord, or doggo?
But even my time argument fails. Because what's the harm in adding words? We aren't bound by any space limitations or something. We don't run out of "word slots" and once they're all used we're stuck forever.
Long story short, I don't know what the answer is. But I do know that horsefeatherses isn't a word.