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A sniglet () is an often humorous word made up to describe something for which no dictionary word exists. Introduced in the 1980s TV comedy series '' Not Necessarily the News'', sniglets were generated and published in significant numbers, along with submissions by fans, in several books by
Rich Hall Richard Travis Hall (born June 10, 1954) is an American comedian, writer, documentary maker and musician, first coming to prominence as a sketch comedian in the 1980s. He wrote and performed for a range of American networks, in series such as ...
, beginning with his ''Sniglets'', ''Sniglets for Kids'', and ''More Sniglets'' in the mid-1980s.


Origin


Development by Rich Hall

The term ''sniglet'' was conceived by comedian
Rich Hall Richard Travis Hall (born June 10, 1954) is an American comedian, writer, documentary maker and musician, first coming to prominence as a sketch comedian in the 1980s. He wrote and performed for a range of American networks, in series such as ...
during his tenure on the 1980s HBO comedy series '' Not Necessarily the News''. Each monthly episode featured a regular segment on sniglets, which Hall described as "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should". In 1984, a collection of sniglets was published by Hall, titled ''Sniglets (snig' lit: any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should)''. This was followed by a "daily comic panel" in newspapers, four more books, a game, and a calendar. Many sniglets are
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsLewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
. 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. The original book has two appendices, "Anatomical Sniglets" and "Extra Added Bonus Section for Poets", and ''More Sniglets'' includes an "Audio-Visual Sniglets" section. 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." The ''Game of Sniglets'' is 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. Players earn points by either guessing which word is the "official" sniglet, or by having their word chosen as the best candidate; the points earned determine how many spaces players can advance on the game board. The game instructions offer 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.


Precursors

In 1914, humorist
Gelett Burgess Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951) was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclast ...
published a dictionary of original
neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
s, ''Burgess Unabridged: A New Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed''. Humor writer Paul Jennings had published made-up meanings of real place-names in a 1963 essay appearing in ''The Jenguin Pennings''. Author
Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a " ...
, 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''.Gartner, Michael (15 March 1987)
Words
''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
''
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). Douglas Adams believed that when the format of Lloyd's satirical TV show ''
Not the Nine O'Clock News ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' is a British television sketch comedy show which was broadcast on BBC2 from 1979 to 1982. Originally shown as a comedy alternative to the '' Nine O'Clock News'' on BBC1, it features satirical sketches on then-curren ...
'' 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.


Beyond comedy

In a 1990 interview, Hall was asked if the "Sniglets books erecompletely for comic value?" He answered, Anne Wescott Dodd's ''A Handbook for Substitute Teachers'' (1989) and Marcia L. Tate's ''Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Literacy Strategies That Engage the Brain'' (2005) 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'' and ''Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue Is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice Is Done'', respectively. The idea has been borrowed by Barbara Wallraff for her book ''Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words'', where "word fugitives" is her term for invented words. Wallraff's ''
Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' column "Word Fugitives" features words invented by readers, although they had to be puns, which many sniglets are not.


Examples

* Aquadextrous: possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet with the toes. * Castcaspers: dead actors who appear on television. * Chwads: discarded gum found beneath tables and countertops. * Essoasso: One who swerves through a service station to avoid a red light. * Glutetic chair: the chair design found in movie theaters. * Icelanche: When ice at the bottom of an upturned glass suddenly moves toward the mouth as one attempts to finish drinking the liquid. * Jokesult: When someone insults you, you call them on it, and they say, "It was just a joke." * Larry: a frayed toothbrush. * Premblememblemation: The act of checking that a letter is in a mailbox after it has been dropped. * Snackmosphere: the pocket of air found inside snack and/or potato chip bags. * Terma helper: The extra verbiage used to stretch a 600-word essay to the required 1000. * Toboggan hagen: a large ice cream sundae.


In popular culture

Homer Simpson Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the American animated sitcom ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared, along with the rest of his family, in ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' short ...
, a
fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a trad ...
al character of the animated television series ''
The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...
'', suggests ''Son of Sniglet'' as a good book to name as a favorite and a life influence when he is completing his college application in the episode " Homer Goes to College". The fictional character
Dale Gribble Dale Alvin Gribble (born July 12, 1953) is a fictional character in the Fox animated series ''King of the Hill'', voiced by Johnny Hardwick. He is an exterminator, bounty hunter, owner of Daletech, chain smoker, gun fanatic, and paranoid believ ...
in the animated television series ''
King of the Hill ''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an ...
'' explains his inappropriate laughter upon successfully sabotaging a new relationship of fellow character Bill Dauterive, saying "just remembered a funny sniglet!" The satirical newspaper ''
The Onion ''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is based in Chicago but originated as a weekly print publication on August 2 ...
'' published an article in 2001 mocking sniglets as an obscure fad.


See also

* Daffynition * Dord *
Eggcorn An eggcorn is the alteration of a phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,, sense 2 creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used ...
*
Jabberwocky "Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The b ...
*
Mondegreen A mondegreen () is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes w ...
*
Neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
*
Phono-semantic matching Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with phonetically and semantically similar words or roots from ...
*
Portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsThe Meaning of Liff''


References


Further reading


Primary sources

Rich Hall released several volumes of collected sniglets, illustrated by Arnie Ten: * * * * * * * ''Game of Sniglets'' (1990), . * ''Sniglet a Day – 1994 Calendar'' (1993), .


External links

* {{cite web, url=http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/95/t/000699/p/1.html, title=snopes.com: Don't you have a word for...?, work=snopes.com, access-date=3 April 2016
Additional sniglet examples

Arnie Ten official website
1980s neologisms Nonce words Protologisms 1980s in comedy