6 Made Up Nerd Words That Made it to Common Usage, and 8 That Should

What? Ursula K. LeGuin is a great author, but did not write A Wrinkle in Time. That was Madeleine L’Engle. Normally these errors don’t get to me…but this one did.

Same here! >:[

I insist that Grok’s the state
The best is missed if you Grok too late.
You can’t start docking if your pilot ain’t grokkin’
Grok makes the worlds rotate.
 
–Oat, Ash and Thorn, “Thurb, Kemmer, Grok”
 
I’m glad you limited Sci-Fi curse words to just one – there’s been a number of lists with just those. 
 
If I have to pick my most-used Sci-Fi word, it’s “Tanj”, short for “There Ain’t No Justice”, from Larry Niven’s Known Space books.  Larry is awesome.
 
Nick Pollotta (AKA Nick Smith if you’re an older fan and remember the Phil A. Delphia skits) had a great one in his Satellite Night News books (written under the name Jack Hopkins) – “Whistle”.  The refernce being to the horrifying noise you’d hear if a micrometeorite pierced your spacesuit.  It’s such a common occurrence in space, the act of whistling is bad luck, and only newcomers to space would dare do it.

madeleine l’engle writing “a wrinkle in time” is besides the point because ursula le guin wrote “rocannon’s world” and is the originator of the term “ansible”

It’s interesting that you mentioned Nancy Stouffer re Muggle, because the end result of that court case had the judge finding that she had forged/faked documents that she claimed were evidence of her prior use of the term MUGGLE, and she was fined about 50,000 because the judge found she had engaged in a “pattern of intentional bad faith…” 

Ugh, that explains why I was so confused on that one. I’ve had Ms. L’Engle on the brain for a couple weeks now because of the Wrinkle anniversary. 

Fantastic list! So glad you included “robot.” And WORD on the dolphins!!

“writers like words. We like them so much.”

Unless you’re making a pun I don’t understand, the last sentence of the Muggle entry should have “illicit”, not “elicit.”

Thank you from another word lover.

I would just like to point out that ALL words are “made up”, so the title only needs to say “Six words…” :-p

“Lets face it, despite what that MPAA will tell you, adults curse in informal situations, all the frakkin’ time.” It took me so many years to realize this, I always thought my friends and I were, not exactly bad but not really normal either for cursing so much in high school.

“I’m gorram ruttin this shiny poozer, ya grok it?”

My fiance and I regularly use the word “Matango” (from Secret of Mana) as a greeting. 

We like words. We are not perfect at them at all times.

Which is why word lovers have friends who are word lovers!

I’m really sorry if I sounded bitchy.  I didn’t mean to!  I just thought you might like to know about the typo?

Utlanning, Framling and Varelse are just standard swedish words for Foreigner (Utlänning), Stranger (Främling) and Being (Varelse). Ramen is not :) Also these are used in Ender’s game, see wikipedia

I agree with a lot of the commentary in here… I really hope there’s some better fact checking in the future.  

I mentioned to the gals after the fact that we should have made one paragraph using all the of the words.  :)

Oh for sure and no worries! You can feel free to email us if you catch something in the future. We’re probably more likely to see that quicker anyway. Use the tips email on the side of the page. That goes for everyone!

Controversies aside, it’s a good list. I can think of a few other geek words that have gone mainstream:

Brainiac – From the Superman villain, now used to describe a smart person.
Bizarro – Also a Superman villain, used to describe things that are strange or reversed.
Shazam – Captain Marvel’s magic word, later made popular by Gomer Pyle. Used when something sudden occurs. It’s also now a smartphone app.
Chortle – Do we count Lewis Carroll as geeky? This word from ‘Jabberwocky’ is now in the dictionary.

I was always fond of ‘fiction’ to describe a particular place/time in quantum space.

the words aren’t used until speaker of the dead.  if wikipedia says differently, they’re wrong.

I didn’t know that about ‘chortle’!  Cool.

“slag” is very common British slang. The noun means “slut”, the verb (“to slag somebody/something off”) means to deride. And, of course, it’s a legitimate word to any geologist/volcano enthusiast.

I can not bear it when people say frickin’ or darn instead of actually swearing, so I would not approve of ‘frak’ being used, just swear!
I understand it in the context of the show but I couldn’t cope with it in everday life.

In saying that I do like the word ‘smeg’ and I am chuffed if I hear people say it.

I also loved the future teen slang of Connie Willis’ “Doomsday Book.” Apocalyptic! was good, and necrotic was bad. I always kinda hoped they would catch on.

“Poozer” was originally from a Dr. Seuss book, where the characters run afoul of the Perilous Poozers of Pamplemousse Pass.

It’s bad enough when people fake-swear without fake-swearing out of nerdery. Nothing is more embarrassment squicky that hearing someone say frak or frell out loud.

Wouldn’t the fact that people eat ramen noodles freak our new “ramen” friends the hell out (at least initially)?

Well, I couldn’t really help noticing the word “Utlanning”. It’s practically just the Swedish  word for foreigner (utlänning), without the umlaut. Also the Norwegian word (utlending), the Danish word (udlænding) and the German word (Ausländer) are very similar.I can see why the author has used it, but he didn’t make it up.

In my last semester of college, I took a class on the philosophy of love where one of the major points was learning how to grok and how to allow it to fill your life with love. Very interesting.

Thanks for mentioning that because I was like ‘wasn’t that a huge fake out’

Embarrassing for whom, exactly?

Actually the word “grok” exists in the Maltese language too since before 1961. It’s written “grokk” and means (alcoholic) drink too.

I’ve long admired this schema of Scott’s, and I appreciated learning about its Swedish linguistic source, I just wish the one category that was an exception didn’t share the name of a noodle.

I must remember to ask his editor, a colleague of mine, why she let him get away with that.

SO glad you wrote in….I was reading down thru the comments and was going to mention this myself.  but I speak such poor norsk that I couldn’t have written  your comment with such authority!!  Hilsener, Nina Viking Cybrarian

In that case, it is just approximating the scandinavian word “glog”  written with an omlaut over the o.   It is spiced, warmed wine, drunk with a shot of akavit,  in the winter. 

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