Sniglets a type of neologism,[not verified in body] were popularized by comedian/actor Rich Hall during his tenure on the 1980s HBO comedy series Not Necessarily the News,[not verified in body] each monthly episode of which featured a regular segment on "sniglets," which Hall described as "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should."[1] Possibly originating in a game devised by author Douglas Adams and British comedy producer John Lloyd,[verification needed] sniglets were generated and published in significant number, along with submissions by fans, in several books, beginning with Hall's Sniglets, Sniglets for Kids, and More Sniglets in the mid-1980s.
Contents
Examples
Hall collections
In 1984, a collection of sniglets was published by Hall, entitled Sniglets (snig' lit: any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should).[1] This was followed by a "daily comic panel" in newspapers, four more books, a game, and a calendar.[2] Many sniglets are portmanteau words, a comedic style often traced to Lewis Carroll.[citation needed]
The Hall books have their entries arranged in alphabetical order like a dictionary, with information on how to pronounce the word, followed by a definition, and sometimes accompanied by an illustration.[citation needed] The original book had two appendices, "Anatomical Sniglets" and "Extra Added Bonus Section for Poets," and More Sniglets included an "Audio-Visual Sniglets" section.[citation needed] All five books included an "Official Sniglets Entry Blank", beginning, "Dear Rich: Here's my sniglet, which is every bit as clever as any in this dictionary."[citation needed]
The Game of Sniglets was a board game in which players tried to identify the "official" sniglet from among a list that also included sniglets that fellow participants had created to go along with a provided definition.[3] Players earned points by either guessing which word was the "official" sniglet, or by having their word chosen as the best candidate; the points earned determined how many spaces players could advance on the game board. The game instructions offered suggestions for creating a new sniglet, such as combining or blending words; changing the spelling of a word related to the definition; or creating new, purely nonsensical words.[3]
Origin of concept
Humor writer Paul Jennings had published made-up meanings of real place-names in a 1963 essay appearing in The Jenguin Pennings.[citation needed][relevant? ] Author Douglas Adams, while travelling with British comedy producer John Lloyd, suggested they play a game he had learned at school in which players were challenged to make up plausible word definitions for place names taken from road maps; the definitions they came up with were later incorporated into a 1983 book, The Meaning of Liff.[citation needed] The similarities and relationship between the content of this book and the Hall concept of sniglets is noted by Barbara Wallraff, in Word Court (2001).[4] When the format of Lloyd's satirical TV show Not the Nine O'Clock News was sold to America—where it became Not Necessarily the News—the producers also took the made-up word definition concept, which became the sniglets popularized by Hall.[5][third-party source needed]
In teaching and popular culture
In a 1990 interview, Hall was asked if the "Sniglets books [were] completely for comic value?" He answered,
Yeah. Well, no. I wouldn't say they're completely for comic value. I mean, I get letters from schools all the time saying how they've incorporated a sniglet book into their reading program. You can look at a lot of the words and sort of break them down into their etymological origins. And you can learn a lot about how and where words derive from. When you assign this frailty of human nature a word, then the word has to work. It has to either be a hybrid of several other words, or have a Latin origin, or something.[6]
Anne Wescott Dodd's A Handbook for Substitute Teachers (1989)[7] and Marcia L. Tate's Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Literacy Strategies That Engage the Brain (2005)[8] suggest creating sniglets as a classroom activity, and so bear out his claim.
Popular English language experts such as Richard Lederer and Barbara Wallraff have noted sniglets in their books, The Miracle of Language[9] and Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue Is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice Is Done,[4] respectively. More recently, the idea has been borrowed by Barbara Wallraff for her new book Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words, where "word fugitives" is her term for invented words.[10] Wallraff's Atlantic Monthly column "Word Fugitives"[11] featured words invented by readers, although they had to be puns, which many sniglets are not.[citation needed]
Sniglets also are a popular subject of satire. Homer Simpson, a fictional television character in the animated series The Simpsons created by Matt Groening, suggests Son of Sniglet as a good book to name as a favorite and a life influence on a college application in the episode "Homer Goes to College".[12]
The fictional character Dale Gribble in the animated television series King of the Hill explains his inappropriate laughter at upon successfully sabotaging a new relationship of fellow character Bill Dauterive, saying "just remembered a funny sniglet!"[13] The satirical newspaper,The Onion. published an article in 2001 mocking Sniglets as an obscure fad.[14]
Publications
Books
Rich Hall released several volumes of collected sniglets, illustrated by Arnie Ten:
- Hall, Rich (1984). Sniglets (snig'lit): Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should. Illustrated by Arnie Ten. New York, NY: Macmillan. ISBN 0020125305.
- Sniglets for Kids. 1985. ISBN 0899543979.[full citation needed]
- Hall, Rich (1985). More Sniglets (snig'lit): Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should. Illustrated by Arnie Ten. New York, NY: Macmillan. ISBN 0020125607.
- Hall, Rich (1986). Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe (snig'lit): Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should. Illustrated by Arnie Ten. New York, NY: Macmillan. ISBN 002040400X.
- Hall, Rich (1987). Angry Young Sniglets (snig'lit): Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should. Illustrated by Arnie Ten. New York, NY: Macmillan. ISBN 002012600X.
- Hall, Rich (1989). Slichter, Ann; Tourk Lee, Pat, eds. When Sniglets Ruled the Earth (snig'lit): Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should. Illustrated by Arnie Ten. New York, NY: Macmillan. ISBN 0020404417.
Other publications
- Game of Sniglets (1990), OCLC 25494206.[full citation needed]
- Sniglet a Day - 1994 Calendar (1993), ISBN 0836273796.[full citation needed]
See also
References and notes
- ^ a b Hall, Rich (1984-01-01). Sniglets (snig'lit): any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should. New York: Collier Books. ISBN 0020125402.
- ^ Metcalf, Alan (2002). Predicting New Words: The Secrets of Their Success. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 23. ISBN 0618130063.
- ^ a b "The Game of Sniglets Playing Instructions" (PDF). Blippee.com. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
- ^ a b Wallraff, Barbara (2001). Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue Is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice Is Done. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 306. ISBN 0544109937. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
- ^ Adams, Douglas & Pearlman, Gregg (1987-03-27). "Exclusive Interview With Douglas Adams (Author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)". The presented URL is dead, but the interview is available at the site archive.is (archived 6 July 2013, accessed 2 April 2016).[third-party source needed]
- ^ Lerner, Reuven M. (1990-09-25). "An interview with Rich Hall". The Tech [MIT] 110 (37): 10.
- ^ Dodd, Anne (1989). A Handbook for Substitute Teachers. Springfield, Ill.: C.C. Thomas. ISBN 0398055394.
- ^ Tate, Marcia (2005). Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Literacy Strategies That Engage the Brain. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press. ISBN 1412915104.
- ^ Lederer, Richard (1999). The Miracle of Language. New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books. p. 58. ISBN 0671028111.
- ^ Wallraff, Barbara (2006). Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words. New York, N.Y.: Harper. p. 5. ISBN 0060832738.
- ^ "The Atlantic". Theatlantic.com. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
- ^ Groening, Matt (1997). The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family. p. 122. ISBN 978-1435245471.
- ^ "King of the Hill : Episode "Untitled Blake McCormack Project" (2008)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
- ^ "Man Won't Stop Coming Up With New Sniglets" (print, online satire piece). The Onion 37 (11). 2001-03-28. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
Further reading
- "snopes.com: Don't you have a word for...?". snopes.com. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
External links
- Additional Sniglet Examples
- Arnie Ten official website
- The Pseudodictionary, "The dictionary for words that wouldn't make it into dictionaries." A collection of user-submitted neologisms.
- Unwords.com A collection of made-up words and definitions created by everyday people, out of necessity or for humor.