Anonymous asked: Can you tell me how I would use 'brumous' in in a story? Also, 'brume' is the noun od brumous, right?

Yep! “Brume” is heavy fog, clouds, mist, vapor. An anon also added, 

Alongside brumous, there is also brumal—both functioning as adjectives and essentially meaning the same thing.

“Sitting on the couch with the soggy last of a bowl of cereal, Robin looked out her window at the brumous six o’clock sky and just felt morose. The minor thrill of starting her last year of high school had long since worn off, and what she really felt like she needed was some good old-fashioned adventure.”

(That’s from the rough, rough draft of a story I’m writing. Writing is hard.)

halcyonhours asked: Aspiring linguist here: A word becomes a word when someone actually uses it. Sonder became a word since the moment someone gave it meaning, so, I don't know if it'd be academically accepted by teachers, but it is a word indeed and completely valid to use. Just check the works of David Foster Wallace and count the number of "made-up" words :) It's completely valid.

Answer moved here, and here’s why.

Anonymous asked: Maybe anonymous could remind her teacher that at some point in time absolutely every word was entirely made up by someone.

Answer moved here, and here’s why.

rmirolo asked: often times words like sonder can be understood, if spoken in the right tone, with the appropriate gestures in the right context. It may be more difficult in writing, but think of all the words you know that you didn't have to look up in a dictionary. It's how we learn words the most naturally.

Answer moved here, and here’s why.

Anonymous asked: (this is the same person) so since "sonder" is made up, it would be totally ridiculous for me to ever use it in conversation, a writing assignment, or other stuff? thank you so much for the help(:

Read More

Anonymous asked: i love you and your passion for word and language. thank you for having this amazing blog and teaching me new, wonderful words every day.

I love you and your passion for word and language! Thank you for reading this blog and learning new, wonderful words every day. <3

Anonymous asked: Since you'll be published, can I just fix your Hungarian post?

Yes please. Send corrections!

Anonymous asked: what's the word that describes the realization or understanding that everyone you ever meet or pass in life has their own life and that you may or may not be a part of it but everything is connected? (sorry, i honestly can't remember very well)

My original answer to this question kind of turned controversial, for reasons I don’t entirely understand myself. In order to maintain the appearance of this blog and avoid further controversy, I’ve relocated the huge walls of text all the posts relevant to this discussion to my answerblog.

The direct answer is here. A further discussion about using “made-up” words, and this one in particular, is here. Here are the rest of the posts about language, language’s evolution, new words, “made-up” words, the wordness status of “made-up” words, and my personal stance about what I call “the balance between invention and tradition”. And here is my defense against people calling me a prescriptivist, which I am not.

I really recommend reading through all these posts; it’ll help you understand my opinions on the fairly sticky idea of “real words”, and you can decide your own opinion. Questions or comments can be directed to Otherwordly’s askbox! Dialogue is welcomed.

Anonymous asked: Hi, I was wondering if you could name different types of "thropes." Er, I know this is an odd request, but I'm curious as to what other "thropes" there are. (i.e. misanthrope, thanatothrope) Sadly, those are the only two I know. I also want to say that I really love your blog and I love the fact that you have such a passion for words. Alternatively, congratulations on your book! I'll be sure to buy it!

Thank you! And odd requests are totally okay by me—t’s just that I don’t think you’re asking quite the right question. In the word “misanthrope”, the root isn’t -thrope. It’s -anthrope, meaning ‘human’. A misanthrope is someone who doesn’t like people.

So “thanatothrope” isn’t actually a word, since -thrope doesn’t mean anything. I’m actually kinda curious to where you heard that from and what you thought it meant. I know thanatos means sea I LIED—it means “death”. (thank you, other anon) But I can’t find any word that’s similar to that at all.

If you’re looking for other -anthropes, there’s lycanthrope, which is a werewolf. A therianthrope is a shapeshifter. Philanthropy is loving others by helping them, especially monetarily (but one who does this is called a philanthropist).

edit I got your other ask, I just can’t find it in my box. I found you a few more -anthropes, though half of them are related to shapeshifting. An ailuranthrope is a werecat; an arctanthrope, a werebear. An exanthrope is a cause of a disease that is external rather than from inside the body. Synanthropes are animal species that live near and benefit from humans—things like pigeons and rats and not things like cows or dogs. That’s about it, actually, unless you want to get all the werecreatures.

Anonymous asked: What's a nice word for "special day"?

really now

“Red-letter day”? Sorry, I got nothin’. But on a related note, qualtagh means “the first person you meet on a special day”!

(alittlebirdysays: “吉日 (kichijitsu) means ‘lucky day’ or ‘special day’ [in Japanese]!”)

Anonymous asked: I'm really embarrassed and offended you've posted my friendzone question the way you have. It was a genuine question and I feel made fun of. Unfollowed.

And mine was a genuine answer! Sure, I tried to be funny at first, but then I said “here is my actual advice” and then gave actual advice. If you didn’t focus on being embarrassed (and there is… very minimal embarrassment because you are on anon), I think you’d see that I was really trying to be helpful and as polite as I could.

The literal answer to your question is: tell them how you feel, and if they don’t feel the same way, you have to respect that. I hate the term friendzone, with all its nasty connotations of entitlement, but I didn’t hate on you for using it. Sorry to see you go.

/done