Talk:Nonce word

Not a stub
Not a stub? This article seems to me to be very complete considering the topic. Perhaps it's not a stub? --Blewett 04:36, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I was just thinking the same thing, and checked the talk page to see if it had been discussed. So I'm going to be bold. ;) Galaxiaad 22:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Nonce Word vs Neologism
How about adding such section? These terms have similiar meaning. It seems to me like the only differences are that
 * a nonce word is always (?) a neologism
 * alternatively - if you consider "expectation to recur" - a nonce word is not expected to recur, while neologism might (or is?)
 * a neologism can be an existing word with a new meaning, while nonce word - from the current definition - can not
 * a word can be a neologism for a (subjectively) longer time than it is a nonce word, since when a nonce word is useful for a longer time than at first intended - it stops being a nonce word, but remains a neologism until it is really commonly used and inflected (in inflected languages), when again it just becomes a common word - like email does today.

contradiction?
Doesn't it seem that listing a nonce word as an example would make it, by definition, no longer a nonce word? More importantly, many of the examples are actually in semi-frequent use, such as frood.


 * Yes, most the "examples" here are bad examples—words that enter slang, and technical terms ("clopen") are no longer nonce words.  It might be possible to find nonce words in Douglas Adams or elsewhere that havnt entered slang, but these aint them.  —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 01:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, "frood" is used more than once in the Hitchhiker books, at least in it's adjective form. I believe it is in Restaurant that someone uses the phrase "cool and froody". --DLCinMaine 03:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is only the case in which the examples have or have gained meaning. I have added the word 'foo' as an example in computer science. It is a nonce word (if I understand the definition correctly) that does not have, in fact must not have meaning in order to function properly. Lafeber (talk) 22:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Removed these. The first one appears to be a technical term, and the last three have entered into slang or everyday speech. —Muke Tever talk 21:24, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Clopen set, in topology, refers to sets which are both open and closed.
 * Cromulent - valid, legitimate, and apt, used in an episode of The Simpsons.
 * Frood - a really amazingly together guy, used by Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker's Guide.
 * Truthiness, coined on The Colbert Report, in reference to the tendency of politicians to appeal to emotion rather than reason.

clopen set?
Is Clopen set really a nonce word? It seems to have an established meaning beyond its initial use, from looking at its article. --Allen 00:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Clopen set is a portmanteau:clopen == closed-open. Is not a nonce word Firejuggler86 (talk) 16:19, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Chronosynclastic
My guess would have been that chronosynclastic from Vonnegut would qualify, but I'm not sure. It's been echoed much since, as any nonce word in pop culture is apt to be aped. Nonce almost seems to function as a list of celebrities no-one has ever heard of as published in People magazine. Infundibulum, however, is an entirely valid word. MaxEnt (talk) 06:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

thingy
Would many nonce words live their brief lives as metasyntactic variables? Throwaway strings of syllables composed solely for the sake of avoiding having too many pronouns? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.168.92 (talk) 03:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Nonce sense
I've removed the section on Brass Eye 'Nonce sense' was, unsurprisingly given the context of the programme, a nod to 'nonce' as the British prison slang word for paedophile, increasingly a general slang word. Gerry Lynch (talk) 21:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

"Bananular phone"
Contrary to what the article says, this phrase is not "instantly comprehensible".

Perhaps I'm of the wrong generation to "instantly comprehend" it. Nevertheless, it is a poor example. Wanderer57 (talk) 00:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I completely agree; in fact, if you hadn't made this remark, I would've done it myself. "Bananular phone" strikes me as a downright awful example of the "instant comprehensibility" supposedly inherent to nonce words.  I support removing that entire sentence, as I suspect that the ease of comprehension is neither extremely common, nor recognized by linguists as a necessary quality of nonce words.  Of course I could be wrong and therefore will leave the article alone.  But someone with a background in linguistics and an interest in the subject should consider removing references to instant comprehensibility. R0m23 (talk) 21:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the line should have been kept. It is, or was, instantly recognizable in the context of the song as a portmanteau of "banana" and "cellular". Both banan- and -ular are relatively semantically limited morphemes, so the combined product is easily understood to have the properties of each, despite being a novel word. I'm not going to fight it, but it was an excellent example. 108.56.2.249 (talk) 01:31, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Interpreting
My mother is an Irish Sign Language/English interpreter, and she's remarked to me that interpreters (especially in the field of education) sometimes use "nonce" signs. These signs will be agreed between the student and the interpreter for technical jargon which doesn't exist in ISL, and may be used for the duration of the lecture, or even for the duration of the course. Then, they'll be forgotten.

TRiG (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Fail?
Narbacular is part of the name of a video game. Would that stop it from being a nonce word? iosephus (talk) 12:09, 22 March 2010

Etymology?
The one thing I was interested to find out from this article was "Why (the word) nonce?". Having read it, I'm none the wiser. Does anyone know? Perhaps it's a stub after all! :-) Fredsie Fredsie (talk) 20:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Check your dictionary for the etymologies of such words as "nickname", "newt", "apron", and "orange" (which came, respectively, from an ekename, an eft, a napron, a naranj).


 * Briefly put, nonce comes from once, via the same kind of "mis-division" between the noun and the article before it. Throbert McGee (talk) 02:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Self Referent & Shakespeare
"A nonce word is a word used only 'for the nonce'" Perhaps Shakespeare has a clue : Shakespeare: "And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared for him a chalice for the nonce" (King Claudius to Laertes, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII) Nonce appears to be a unit of time. Nonce here is perhaps referent to the occasion.

non —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.117.57.209 (talk) 09:46, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Nonce phrase vs. nonce word?
Should this article include phrasal examples such as, I dunno, "bald-eagle-flavored"?

I mean, if I were teaching a class of ESL speakers and we read a humorous story that included the sentence "John bought some bald-eagle-flavored ice cream at Baskin-Robbins", I would advise my students that bald-eagle-flavored is purely a "nonce construction" invented by the writer for comical effect -- and that, therefore, they need not memorize the phrase as an idiom to be used in their own speech and writing. Or is there a better term than "nonce" to describe a hypothetical phrase like bald-eagle-flavored? Throbert McGee (talk) 23:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

... or wider still?

 * Perhaps "nonce words" and "nonce phrases" are both examples of "nonce terms"? Perhaps we should be describing, not a (compound) noun, but the adjective "nonce"? yoyo (talk) 14:38, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Context dependence
Is the whole idea of nonceness context-dependent?

Consider the article's current list of examples:

Examples of nonce words previously used in child developmental studies include:

I suggest that neither "dax" nor "fem" could safely be used in a list of nonce words in some situations, as follows:

1. During my formative years growing up in Australia, the sounds represented here as "dax" had a very clear meaning: trousers but was usually spelt "dacks", sometimes "daks". There was also a related verb, possibly a back-formation: "to dack" someone meant to (unexpectedly) pull down their dacks ... a playground pastime among some of my rowdier classmates. ;-) I don't know whether this slanguage yet retains any currency.

2. Browsing the personals (doing some research for a story) in a local paper, I saw that under the heading "Seeking Same", one guy insisted "No fems or fatties". Whilst I'm fairly clear about the meaning of the second epithet, the first one had me guessing, until I connected it with his other requirement "S/A" which I'm told means "straight-acting". Therefore, "fem" means, at least to a particular gay sub-culture, effeminate or "acting girly".

So I conclude that a word or phrase is only nonce when it is truly novel in the context in which it occurs. yoyo (talk) 15:00, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Dictionary listing
How does the OED, for instance, choose which nonce words to list? Obviously, these are being created and used all the time; is it a measure of the supposed significance of the source? Ulmanor (talk) 19:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Factual accuracy
I have just removed a word which appears to be nothing more than urban slang. I think this article needs a lot more references to ensure it has not become corrupted over time. I will try to add more. Philafrenzy (talk) 17:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Shirtjacking, a true nonce word
At this time, "shirtjacking", a nonce word clearly using the second morpheme of "hijacking" and "carjacking", occurs on the searchable Net just twice in English contexts.

Once is in a newspaper article, http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/dan-jones-writings-on-the-wall-as-game-sends-out-mixed-messages-over-tshirts-8436404.html, and the other in a piece of erotic fan fiction, http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7915844/11/Confessions-of-a-Serial-Texter.

Google also finds it in two Portuguese-language blog postings.

I've added it to this article's examples as particularly apt, w/ a link here. GeorgeTSLC (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed it as it is a new word that has a clear meaning but is simply not in common use. Philafrenzy (talk) 01:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Does prisencolinensinainciusol belong here?
I mean, the song's entire lyrics are gibberish, but aren't they also nonces? Myself248 (talk) 03:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Possibly but there are more than enough in the article already to show the meaning. Philafrenzy (talk) 08:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

lexeme misuse?
I am not a linguistics expert, but I was researching nonce's and couldn't figure out what a lexeme was from the linked page so I sent it to my brother-in-law who is a PhD in linguistics for an explanation. He says the word lexeme is being misused in this article. Can a linguistic expert take a look at this and comment on/fix that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.64.201.1 (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This is the exact quote from David Crystal's book The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language, "A nonce word (from the 16th-century phrase for the nonce, meaning 'for the once') is a lexeme created for temporary use, to solve an immediate problem of communication." p. 132. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Bouba/kiki effect
Would it be appropriate to include the Bouba/kiki effect in the 'Other examples' section? I was expecting to see it there, and it seems to fit with some of the others. &mdash; Gidds (talk) 13:13, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Definition isn't clear enough: does created for a single occasion imply that this could be done independently done by many people on many separate occasions?
I added the word battleshippy to wiktionary, and someone added the label nonce word. This word only has one or two printed uses, but many conversational uses. The person on wiktionary claims that it is still a nonce word, since the word has been independently invented by many people. And definition here on wikipedia doesn't really clarify this matter. If this is the case, I propose this wording: created for a single occasion, or independently on many occasions. 73.71.174.75 (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Isn't the presumption that the nonce was created for a single use? That the nonce was appreciated and re-used does not change its status as a nonce unless it becomes wideley-adopted and often-used.MaynardClark (talk) 00:20, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

@MaynardClark: that is not what the OP says the wiktionary person is claiming. The wiktionary person claims that the word was *independently created* by many different people (presumably unknowingly of each other).

To the OP: *if* the claim made by the wiktionary person were true, then such word *would* have been a nonce word for each separate occasion it was created; however, the wiktionary person's claim is outlandish.

Short answer: battleshippy is not a nonce word. Firejuggler86 (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

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Chunnel
The Channel tunel, the tunel below the English Channel.--Manfariel (talk) 02:38, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Is not a nonce word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:171B:2274:7C21:D4F5:CE77:3BE5:F334 (talk) 13:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Flawed "Examples" section
"One common class of examples arises when giving technical instructions to a non-specialist. For example when disassembling a machine one might give the instruction "Do you see the flanged doohickey between the three blinking lights? Use the spanner to turn it counterclockwise. Then remove the panel. You should see a square compartment with four round gizmos on the corners. . . ." In this example the words 'doohickey' and 'gizmos' are nonce words. The exact nature of a 'gizmo' is unimportant for the instructions, only that it is distinct from the 'doohickey' mentioned before."

This seems to have been written by someone who does not understand the meaning of nonce word, mixing it up with other ideas. The words "doohickey" and "gizmo" are in common use.

2001:171B:2274:7C21:D4F5:CE77:3BE5:F334 (talk) 13:19, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It's also all unsourced, so just delete the section (which I have done for you). Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:05, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I liked the unsourced "examples" section even if it was wrong.
 * At the moment the only examples are "blicket", "stad", "mell", "coodle", "doff", "tannin", "fitch", and "tulver". These are clearly not normal English words. But it is not clear what makes them nonce words since there is no context given for their use.
 * There is also the "wug" child studies example. But the context is something not familiar to most readers. It is not clear what the "immediate problem of communication to be solved" is here.
 * Can we have an example of something most readers are familiar with? That is the purpose of an example after all -- to relate something unfamiliar to something familar.
 * I am happy to write the new section if someone suggests some better examples. 2001:BB6:315F:3658:39C0:4C7D:2A44:D7C (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "Doff" is in fact a quite normal English word, the opposite of "don". It means to remove, as in doffing one's hat. SlyGuyFox (talk) 11:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, "tannin" is a commonly used English word. SlyGuyFox (talk) 11:08, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

"Doff"
This is not a nonce word at all but is the opposite of "don", meaning putting on; when one removes his hat, one doffs it, for example. SlyGuyFox (talk) 11:01, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

"Tannin" is not at all a nonce word
Tannins are herbal compounds giving color to water which has been allowed to sit with fallen leaves in it. SlyGuyFox (talk) 11:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

In child development studies 2nd para
"coodle," "doff," "tannin" are all real words from the dictionary, not nonce words 185.13.50.180 (talk) 08:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * They were nonce words in the way they were used in the context of the study, but a slight rephrasing might be useful. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:43, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Medicine?
There are no citations given for the fields of use, although most are somewhat obvious e.g; Bouba/kiki for linguistics; but it's not clear how such an informal usage of language is prevalent enough in medicine to be given as an example. 174.168.158.48 (talk) 15:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)