Icognseeto Sniglet

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Haley Johnson. I’m calling from Suitland, Maryland.

Hi, Haley. Welcome.

Thanks. I’m excited.

Great. We are too. What can we do for you?

So my mom is obsessed with coming up with new words by mashing two words together.

So, for example, because of the pandemic, she’s trying to like hide her sneezes if she sneezes in public.

And she called hiding a sneeze being incogsneedo.

And she calls these new words Sniglets.

And so around Christmas, I was hoping to find a book for her full of Sniglets for her.

And I found out that Sniglets really means more of like coming up with a new word entirely for something that doesn’t already have a word, but not necessarily by mashing two existing words together.

So I told her, I don’t think she’s making up Sniglets like she thinks she is.

And I was just wondering maybe if that is what it would be called or what a Sniglet really is.

Oh, yeah, this is a great question.

I guess your mom is probably more our generation.

She probably remembers Rich Hall and his Sniglet books.

Do you know about those?

No, she hasn’t said anything about them.

Well, there was a show called Not Necessarily the News on HBO, and one of its stars was comedian Rich Hall.

And one of his segments was this bit where he would come up with these words and these goofy definitions.

And they were all weird words.

And the definitions were things that, like, didn’t really need a word, but they were kind of common experience.

Stuff that we all knew about and had all gone through.

Some of them were mashed up words, as you put it, and some of them were not.

So your mom’s words could qualify as a sniglet.

The more linguistic term for those, by the way, those mashed up words are blends or portmanteau words.

And sniglets almost has caught on as a generic word for any word made up to match a quirky or funny definition.

But, you know, I guess this is the evidence that it’s fallen out of use with the younger generations since your mom knows it and you kind of don’t.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, she’ll be really glad to hear that because when I said, I don’t think they’re called Sniglets, she just was not hearing that and said, no, they definitely are.

I think it’s funny, too, that you said that they’re not necessarily words that you need, but they’re common experiences because I told her it’s funny.

She comes up with all these Sniglets, but we literally never use them.

So she never repeats them besides when she comes.

Yeah, she just comes up with them, but then they never get said again unless she’s remembering it.

Well, Haley, I don’t know. I really like incogsneedo. I think that’s something we do need a word for because when I’m in public, if I have to sneeze, I try to be discreet about it at least, you know.

Yeah, you don’t want the look these days that somebody might think you’re a snake.

Right. You don’t want the look. So I think incognito is a good one. I think my favorite is the term for, you know, you buy a picture frame, like a cheap picture frame, and there’s a photograph of happy people in the picture frame, and somebody called those laminites. I just think that’s hysterical.

One of Rich Hall’s sniglets that I like is aqua dextrous.

This is the ability to turn off the bathtub faucet with your toes or your feet.

Aqua dextrous.

That’s pretty good, but you don’t really need it, right?

No, but I do like that.

I do that.

So, yeah, that’s funny.

And Haley, your mom is coming up with these all the time?

She comes up with one like every day.

I mean, it’s what it feels like.

She texts me with another one, and we just at this point are just like, thumbs up, great job.

There’s another one, but she sees them in everything.

So it’s funny.

It’s fun.

Cool.

Haley, thanks for sharing.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking the call.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.