I was just writing a blog post for one of my food blogs and I was stumped at what to call myself. I was sort of thinking that “foodie” would be appropriate, but it sounded childish. Like I should be playing with Play-doh. I couldn’t think of a word that made sense. I knew there had to be one, but I didn’t know it. And it was just a blog post after all so I didn’t see the harm…

I made up a word - culinariophile - my spell checker immediately underlined it in red. It was liberating - I just didn’t care. Sometimes, you need to make up a word. Existing words may not have exactly the meaning or the connotation you are going for. I am someone who cooks in a sophisticated way, and loves doing so. So I made up a word.

Truth be told, even if a word did exist that had the meaning, I won’t erase it. I like my word. But maybe some food writer down at Food & Wine beat me to it. I don’t care. It’s still a great word. I heard that “Meh” got added to the dictionary recently. That isn’t even a word, it’s a sound.

So, from one writer to the other - go ahead - make up a word to express yourself. You have unique thoughts. There may not be a word equipped to handle what you are trying to express.

Just for kicks, set your timer for ten minutes and come up with as many new words as you can. Try to come up with at least ten. Use them throughout the week and see what happens. You could start some new trends!