GO AHEAD, MAKE NEW WORDS!

https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_go_ahead_make_up_new_words#t-398183

In this video, we can observe that creation and imagination is not just for some subjects, sports or events. Erin McKean, a dictionary editor and the maker of the online dictionary Wordnik, makes a good analyses of the words using in the English world. She makes an example to verify that everybody makes use of their knowledge in English to make up words.

However, Erin is in favour of the fact that everybody is allowed to create new words, new kinds of expressions that could be useful in our daily life.

She also makes critics of the possibilities to make new words. She is upset because loads of people encourages others to make new music, to create new ways of painting, but we are not allowed to create new words. That has no sense.

Finally, she points out that, even we know English language quit well to make ourselves understood, there are lots of words we usually do not use in their whole capacity. Some of them are nouns that could be verbs, or even adjectives that could work as nouns or verbs. This is a good point to take into account, we all can learn English every single day.

To sum up, Erin McKean opens minds to the opportunity of making new words. I do not think this is a way to make a language bigger or to destroy other common words that are used every day. In my opinion, this kind of challenge is for us to improve our ways of thinking, not just following one’s opinion or option, but to be critical and to have own judgement.

For me, this kind of exercises, creating new words, are useful for children, I think. I suppose that in my future class it would be necessary for them to participate, to learn and to acquire the importance of having their own opinion.