Inventing new words is fun. I think using well-known words in a new-yet-not-entirely-redicilous-but-definately-weird context is even better though, as it focuses the reader/listener more to the context of what you’re saying and not the new word itself.

It’s unfortunate, i think, that while creative use of language in poetry or literature is considered ‘art’ , whereas a little creativity in everyday talking/writing/babbling is frowned upon in some circles. I just don’t understand that people who admire writers for using beautiful language in their work (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nabokov) are often so terribly conservative in everyday language.

It is a shame that quite a bit of everyday language-creativity is associated with subcultures. Not only does this kill the original creative idea because the linguistic novelty suddenly is part of this subculture and hence has to be followed (yuppiespeak and boyz-on-da-hood-speak are obvious examples), but also because outsiders will form their view on that language based more on that subculture than anything else.

There is a lot of snobism in the latter: “intellectuals” saying they absolutely love poetry for the ” beautiful, creative use of language” while they refuse to accept that there is a lot of absolutely brilliant use of language to be found in rap and hiphop (not only in English – i think the best lyricist we currently have in Dutch music are in hiphop). Accusations for me being a hypocrite are welcome though: i absolutely hate yuppiespeak and fluffy-leftist-sociobabble. Not only because i think the language itself is ugly, but definately also because i hate the subcultures they represent.

If i could add a poll to the end of a posting, i would have done it now:

POLL: This posting was:

O Stupid
O Boring
O Interesting untill i stopped reading it
O In Japanese, wasn’t it?
O Whoa cool, bruddah! Git dat dude sum bitshez!