Oct 4, 2023
"That's just a made up word."
All words are made up, friend. Language has meaning because we give it meaning. Words mean things because we use them to express things to each other. We can make and do make new words as well as redefine the meanings of old words. Language isn't static. "Smartphone" was not a word that existed in 1973, but it does in 2023 and the word's meaning is commonly understood across English speaking societies. We shape language together as a species by communicating with each other. And sometimes we do that by inventing new words, using them, and explaining them to others who don't know about the new thing, until those words become common knowledge.
