Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

From the article:

"All of this suggests some possible rules of thumb for anyone contemplating a scientific neologism. Don't invent a new word without really good reason (for example, don't use it to patch over ignorance). Don't neglect to check if one exists already (we don't want both amphiphilic and amphipathic). Don't assume you can put an old word to new use. Make the definition transparent, and think carefully about its boundaries. Oh, and try to make it easy to pronounce - not just in Cambridge but in Tokyo too."

Please judge by the above admonitions the following words I created in my Optical Neural Network research. My research partner and I needed the new words because we were trying to discuss similar concepts at two different levels in the network and were really confusing ourselves. Both words derive from "synapse" and tries to retain its Greekness.

Tranapse -- A sub- neural- network that models a synapse with a transfer function. Reasoning: We model synapses as resistors and our higher-level tranapses have the same relationship to synapses as transistors have to resistors.

Planapse -- A sub- neural- network that provides a negative-feedback, error signal to a tranapse. Reasoning: Not having a Greek-English dictionary and wanting to stay true to the Greek, I found "error" in my Interlinear Greek New Testament as "plane: plah-nay".

BTW, I seem to recall that "synapse" is interesting and redundant--essentially meaning "together together." Please correct me if my memory is wrong.

Emmett