Talk:Sniglet

Untitled
"Many sniglets are portmanteau" Stop linking to portmanteau, please. It's really gotten out of hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.89.193.170 (talk) 03:27, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Should this be merged/redirected with neologism or word coinage? Martin 20:35, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think it rates its own article, probably with a "see also" in word coinage, if not both. - Hephaestos 20:38, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Are all of the example sniglets authentic? I was a fan of NNtN in the 80's, and some of them just don't sound like Hall's style, particularly "Pinch-n-Roll" (a very old term), "Juicenuts" and "Runal". Unfortunately I don't have my Rich Hall books any more, so I can't check, but Googling these terms doesn't turn up anything specific to Hall. Darguz Parsilvan 20:42, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yea, those terms don't seem like authentic sniglets to me as well, and I was a fan of NNtN too back then... :) misternuvistor 08:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion and I think history shows that most of these sniglets were awful and cheesily constructed. Like a bunch of failed one-line jokes. 24.168.151.153 06:42, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * One does wonder if any of them actually went into general usage (besides "sniglet" itself). Schizombie 00:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I deleted all the examples of portmanteaus, which are their own thing. That helped pare the list down. JDoorj a m    Talk 01:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Many sniglets were portmanteaus, though. I think I have all the books, and could add cites for all the words, if that would be helpful. Esquizombi 14:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * What sort of citation style should I use to cite the sniglets to the books? Esquizombi 15:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, do you know anything about adding book covers? The cover of one of the books would be nice. Esquizombi 16:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Book covers are kosher; there's even a specific fair-use boilerplate for licensing them. JDoorj a m    Talk 16:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to do that, I suppose I'm going to have to learn? Esquizombi 20:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

"The Meaning of Liff" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, an entire book of sniglets, was published 1n 1984. I think this article overstates the influence of Hall in popularising sniglets. Adams was enormously popular around that time with Hitchhikers' series taking off. There were 2 other books of sniglets by the same authors in later years. I doubt any other writers have published as many widely-read sniglets. About the only sniglet I can remember gaining traction is bozone, which is have now heard a couple of times in everyday conversation. --Bilby5 (talk) 22:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Sniglet or sniglike?
I removed the word "Arping" which I did not find in the books and replaced it with ARG which was - and which matched the definition for Arping. Same with Snotch - actual sniglet for that definition was Sniffleridge. It's possible they were used on TV or in another Hall source, or they could be from similar sorts of books, or they could be completely made up altogether. Esquizombi 21:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

These are ones I removed that I couldn't source. They might be sniglets, but not sure: Esquizombi 02:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Blint: The furry stuff that gathers in a person's navel
 * Fardo: The empathetic feeling of embarrassment one experiences on behalf of someone else who is either too stupid or too ignorant to experience embarrassment for him or herself.
 * Prodivalent: Equally favourably disposed to both alternatives.
 * Toinker: That little plastic tab that keeps a phone plug or network plug from coming out of the socket
 * I like "Sniglike", if the word Sniglet is reserved for the words devised by Rich Hall, or from NNtN. But if it extends to other authors who've invented words to describe something that could do with one, here are a couple from Terry Pratchett's Discworld book, Equal Rites:-

I agree that "Sniglets" should deal strictly with the creations of Rich Hall and the submissions in his actual books. While he's not the one and only person who did this act of making up new words we don't have, it's silly to use his term to refer to other people's work. I'm going to break the description into a paragraph about Rich Hall (using the back-of-the-book details as reference), and leave the other stuff to a second paragraph for clarification.WillieBlues 10:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Squernt:The feeling upon finding that the previous occupant of the privy has used all the paper.
 * P'ch'zarni'chiwkov:The nasty sound of a sword being unsheathed right behind one at just the point when one thought one had disposed of one's enemies.62.6.139.11 11:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)]]

So, just to be clear, examples of sniglikes are not permitted? Because keming (n. The result of improper kerning.) is beautiful, but I don't want to start an edit war over it.Proginoskes (talk) 15:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced examples
Anything in an article of this type that is not referenced is open to the accusation of OR. So contributors or would-be contributors: reference it or lose it. Kevin McE (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Powers source?
Who or what is "Powers 2008?" Шизомби (talk) 17:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well spotted: I've deleted the unsourced contribution of an IP unregistered editor. Kevin McE (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Figures. Coincidentally, on King of the Hill last night, Dale explained away an inappropriate laugh as having been caused by remembering a funny sniglet! Шизомби (talk) 14:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Popular sniglets
The notation someone added on "perdiddle" being a regional variant of peddiddle (how can a Hall sniglet have a regional variant?) made me wonder (along with "spork" Hall 1984: 76) whether there are sniglets that predate Hall, or which while not predating Hall, went into common usage because of the Sniglets books. (I wondered about the latter above.)

On Amazon, I found "perdiddle" in Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume IV, P-Sk (Dictionary of American Regional English) by Joan Houston Hall (interesting coincidence) with the earliest reference being 1959. For "spork" see spork. So it would seem that there are at least some sniglets do predate Hall. This may be worth adding to the article in some way, if I can think how. These do still perhaps fit the definition of "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should" even if they don't fit the definition of "a word contained in one of the Sniglets books." Though in the case of "spork" it did appear in the Century Dictionary, as that article notes, before it appeared in Sniglets. Perhaps it did not appear in one of the popular dictionaries like Webster's or the OED. Шизомби (talk) 16:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, has anyone noticed (to coin a word) snigia: the tendency of many sniglets to relate to the same trivial subjects (toasters, slices of wedding cake, garnish, pounding baseball mitts, etc.)? Isn't that an odd phenomenon? I suspect there might be a couple with the exact same meaning. Шизомби (talk) 17:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"Examples" section needs to go
If the examples given are genuine examples of Rich Hall's work, then they violate WP:COPYVIO, and if not, they violate WP:NOR. Either way they have no place here, so I am removing the section. Rob T Firefly (talk) 10:29, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I doubt if you're right about the COPYVIO, although it had been an open question for me what the selection process for examples ought to be. I had added citations for most of the examples that were there, although people kept adding more (and perhaps making some up or taking them from from places other than Hall), when there's no reason to do so. Шизомби (talk) 22:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't Sniglets from Hall's books and TV appearances be copyrighted material? It seems to me they are owned by either Hall himself or whoever holds the rights to the books and videos.  This would seem to make copying that material verbatim into Wikipedia a major COPYVIO, and I cannot see an appropriate way of rewording definitions or anything to create a suitable example without either including the original copyrighted Sniglet, or making up a new one which would be original research. Rob T Firefly (talk) 05:03, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree making them up isn't appropriate. I still find your claim of COPYVIO strange.  Quotes appear on most WP pages. Шизомби (talk) 05:53, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * How can the originator claim that these "should be in the dictionary" and then object to their circulation? WHPratt (talk) 14:27, 29 September 2014 (UTC) ;)

I just wanted to point out that I know that at least one of the words in the examples list, Autoberg, is wrong, because my family adopted the actual term, Fenderberg, directly from NNtN and have used it for decades. I think this list is as spurious as everybody has suggested in the past. I'm whacking it, and somebody can revert it if they find a source.David A Spitzley (talk) 19:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

References - Pop Culture and whether to add.
I'm not a wiki editor, so please forgive me if I've done something wrong, and I'm not sure if this is a common enough reference to merit adding, but in the television series 'Black Monday' they frequently refences sniglets as a gag, since it's a white guy saying it around his black co-workers and it sounds like the derogatory term. Is this worth adding to the page, or is it too obscure a reference? 2.27.97.37 (talk) 00:29, 15 October 2023 (UTC)