I often find missing words

(ambiguous, that is)

Being someone who has never done anything properly, I of course do not know the ‘correct’ words to name things. This makes communicating with people in particular domain contexts tricky. When they use sentences like “This problem is NP-complete, so we need a heuristic approach.” I carry on relying heavily on my ability of spotting patterns and of cross pollinating ideas, until what they are getting at becomes clear in non-domain terms.

Most of the time this works, but don’t get me started on ‘time’.

I am also comforted by the fact that if you get two people from two very different domain contexts together, they very rarely get their nuances across.

Of course, I have built up a veritable back catalogue of tech phrases over my decades of working in my industry (err... not the writing industry), so it is rare that I’m caught out as I used to be. However, I still find it difficult to describe what I’ve done in that alien language —so I prefer to allow my outputs, visuals and results to do the talking.

Hence whenever anyone asks me to do a presentation, I simply must hide behind a singing all-dancing slideshow.

This is another reason why inventing my own fictional world, with its own terminology, is a good thing, because I can pretend as if I’ve done something properly, for once. I can almost sound knowledgeable about a subject (without the slideshow), ignoring the fact that —sadly— it is all purely fabricated.

Let’s not forget however that the majority of what we use on a daily basis has been…

completely…

Made up.

So, I won’t be too hard on myself.

At least, not for the next hour or so…

I might even not call it an hour, that’s just an invented construct designed by those devious people who brought you slow burning candles and timepieces that listen to jiggling crystals. (See, I told you not to get me started on ‘time’.)

So, I have a love/hate relationship with words.

Forgetting that I seem to have some level of dyslexia mixed in with another disintegrated quality of Pure O, I’ll be forgiven if people don’t fully understand where I’m coming from.

I will, won’t I?

But… there are some words that are perfect, they describe exactly what you need, they have the correct feel and shape —they even have rhythm. Then, there are the words that seem to have been invented just to trip me up, we have rhythm, even, for instance.

But… we also have a lack of words in certain areas.

And this is what this ramble is sort of half-talking about.

For some reason we have a serious number of synonyms for ‘weird’, but hardly any for ‘thing’ —and don’t get me started about describing a ‘wide ceiling’. If I have to use the word ‘expanse’ one more time I’ll raise my future tall buildings to the ground.

I guess this is why, within the TEOWAD universe, I have fallen into that behaviour of making up some words. I promise, I only do this sporadically. But there are some places where they really are needed, autodetrinsically.

I promise I don’t work for anyone in “Big Lexicography”, or anything. There aren’t many repositories of knowledge that are known for serious lobbying. At least none that know me, or that would have the spare funding. I would also make the assumption —knowing nothing of that domain context either— that they are probably quite careful when it comes to adding new words. Who knows how much extra a dictionary costs to print and ship when you go over a threshold limit on pages. You probably start getting strange looks from the type setters and print specialists (now that area of expertise is a domain context and a half!).

Anyway, I think I’ve digressed.

Everything is made up.

So, surely we can make more of it up —as long as it flows and flutters.

People might argue that Mathematics and Science are the areas where humanity manages to escape the fictitious, and gets closer to “truth”. Whatever that is these days. But disciplines that use made-up tools to try and define reality in terms that are equally made up is the kind of thing that my head enjoys.

And if you’ve gleaned anything by now.

My head is not a sensible antwerp†.

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† This is my proposal for using the lowercase (i.e. not a name) word of ‘antwerp’ as a synonym for ‘thing’. It seems to fit. At least in my lexoconifer. I am not, in anyway inferring that Antwerp is a thing. Although it is, like everything else.