This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns
It is nice to know that I am not the only person to think of this question. This question was also asked on Quora on the 22nd of March 2022 by Pratik Chavan. One responder let us know about trap words which were made up words in dictionaries to detect stealing and copyright infringement. My friend Gemini told me about when The New Oxford American Dictionary famously included "esquivalience" (defined as avoiding one's duties) in an edition, which later turned up in another online dictionary, exposing plagiarism. Another responder thinks that the word "the" has no meaning by itself. I understand what he is trying to say but the dictionary has entries under the word "the".
The definition of a word is to have meaning. One dictionary definition says a word is a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing. So if it does not have a meaning then it is not a word. Therefore all words have meaning. While researching this topic I came across three types of words. Nonwords, pseudowords and nonsense words (nonce words). I asked my friend Gemini to explain the difference among these. Nonwords is the broadest category and they are any combination of letters with no meaning in the language. Pseudowords are nonwords that are pronounceable. Nonce word is used interchangeably with nonword. Examples of pseudowords are flummox and zylph. An example of a nonword that is not pronounceable is xblth. Vocable is any meaningful sound uttered by people. I also came across ghost words, gibberish, word salad, wug words and logatome while looking at the wikipedia entry for pseudoword.
I also came across interjections and my question was, are interjections nonwords since they have meaning? Interjections are words like ouch, hmmm and yay. My friend Gemini told me that even though interjections function differently in sentences compared to nouns, verbs, or adjectives, they fulfill the core requirement of a word: conveying meaning. This had me thinking about dialects and local parlance and how they evolve and how they shape the way we communicate.
What if there is a word that has or had a meaning but no one knows what it means now. This reminds me of a question that I have tried a few times to get an answer to. What is the meaning of Crix in Crix crackers? How did they come up with the name? What does it stand for? Has this been lost to time? I even called the company and someone answered who could not give an answer and suggested that the persons who knew are no longer around. I saw a comment online where someone suggested that Crix is the sound the crackers make when we bite into them. In secondary school during my time there, someone came up with the word faling. To hang around when not wanted, to friends up e.g. you might tell someone stop faling. You is a falcon or what?
I now have a bunch of questions that will help me further think about this question. Do we need more words or less words added to the English language? I think we need more words. Should we actively engage in coming up with new words and their meanings? I think so because the language becomes richer. Which language has the most words? Difficult to say but according to the World Atlas, English is thought to have the most words of any language. What about words where we don't know the meaning and we are too lazy to look up the meaning? What about words we give the wrong meaning to?
Is no meaning still meaning just like no comment is still a comment? If I encounter a nonword I can look at the context. I can try to give it meaning. I can use my imagination. I can wormaltz through this empty encounter of language in my mind. A word without meaning is free to just be. Not trapped in a box. Not defined by anyone. Not labeled. Not a slave to our use of language. Words without meaning can be beautiful as well. The exploration of this question has me thinking, "It is better to find who we are than to be told who we are." I would like to end with this piece of wisdom by Abaida Mahmood, "Don't let the world define you, your definition only needs to resonate with yourself."
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