No, very few writers create thousands of specialist words. Most probably doesn’t produce any new words at all. Words are our #1 priority, but existing words, not new, because the readers only know existing words.
What’s the point of using words that the reader doesn’t understand?
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I see your point and raise you Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem.”
I’ve read it. The Glossary runs 20 pages, at about 10-12 words per page. So a few hundred words, not thousands. Most of which were sufficiently understandable from context.
FWIW, most writers are not Neal Stephenson, and even he IMO is sometimes a bit overly casual with the reader’s attention.
Katherine
True, but that wasn’t the point Lunk seemed to be trying to make. Taken to its logical conclusion, “What’s the point of using words that the reader doesn’t understand?” takes us to a very dull, drab place where the only words that can be used are those of the lowest common denominator.
It’s one thing to have a nice discussion about how many new/niche words is appropriate for a given work, how much they affect the ability (and willingness) of a new reader to tease out the meaning. It’s an entirely different thing to attack the use of new words as a general practice (as Lunk’s question appeared to be doing) and doing so ignores the whole nature of language, which is that words have meaning that is agreed upon and shifts, and that people learn new words and new connotations and meaning of words as they morph.
At one point, “grok” was a made-up word. “Tintinabulation” was a made-up word. At one point, nobody knew what those words meant except for the person first using them. If our corporeal bodies are made of star-stuff, our verbal bodies are likewise new combinations.
I didn’t.
I have been teaching at university level for over 35 years and teaching the students a new, professional vocabulary is a part of that. But storytelling is different. If you tell someone a story or a joke, introducing lots of new words will shift focus from the content to trying to understand what you are trying to tell. Writing a novel in English but having all dialogue in French, Chinese or Swahili, will probably make most readers drop the book.
Introducing new words, for things yet unheard of, is common in fantasy and s-f, but more or less inventing a new language and using it extensively in a novel, will most likely reduce your potential number of readers to a minimum, or even zero.
My point is that Scrivener is not built for helping a few persons to invent their own personal language, but to tell stories, of different kinds.
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Gruenbgle juvita non-hysapjaic chiverisanmoblic.
Rovenerri sechha vorbitel hencjellin fokemadvit.
IMO, of course.
Merx
That’s how you know you’ve done it right, when your invented words become canon and then entries into the OED. Shakespeare was first out the gate, in this regard. I think he’s number one, still, and Lewis Carroll was only a distant second.
Of course, in his day, there waren’t any dictionaries or agreed-upon spellings; 'twas the literal Wild West of ye olde Englishe language, and the lexicographers were following other languages down dark alleyways, knocking them over the head, and then rifling through their pockets for good vocabulary…
it’s just too bad they didn’t steal consistency and phonetic spelling from one of the ones like Icelandic or Polish, though. At least, that’s my humble opinion.
People think English spelling is random. Actually it’s morphemic—which Webster seems not to have understood!—representing not just sound but also meaning. The trouble is the that point at which the morphemes were distinct phonemically is back in the Dark and Middle Ages. “Knight” and “night” are now pronounced the same, but they weren’t … ‘knecht’ and ‘night’. Turning them both—or as far as I’m concerned, either of them—into ‘nite’ <ugh!>, as well as imposing phonemic spelling on much of our rich vocabulary would lose much of the richness of the language.
Mark
As any (British) crossword-buff knows, Chambers is the dictionary to have! And Chambers Dictionary and Thesaurus are available for MacOS too. I don’t think they integrate with Dictionary.app, but they load up a small window in which you can switch backwards and forwards between the two, and if you have copied a word onto the clipboard, that word is found automatically.
Mark
I’ll read conlangs all day. They’re fun. Tried to learn Vong once. I added it to the spellchecker as needed. Sure, conlangs can be over-used, but that’s choice for the author. My Klingon is pitiful, but I’ll read Hamlet in it as soon as I can find it.
Americans, of course, are required to pretend that no alternatives to Webster exist.
Katherine
As ever, Two Nations Divided by a Common Language.
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I think this is a classic example of believing content is more important than story. I’ll venture to disagree with the OP here and say what should be obvious–Story Is King.
Oh, I’ve heard the counter arguments for years, “What is story without content? What is …?” 
Sure. World-building, cultures, new worlds, etc. I get the “necessity” of such new words and glossaries in the creations in Epic Fantasy, Space Opera, etc., but at some point necessity hits against the wall of practicality every time.
There are further more arguments in defense of this behavior invoking Shakespeare and his prolific word creation. In truth, the more you study Shakespeare, the more you understand how so many of his words became mainstream through rhythm, simplicity, word-play, expression, and him being tapped in to the understanding of populace of his day. History is witness that language evolves to favor expression economy–where the most simplified, useful, or expressive words (even phrases over words) become the preference in daily use.
Two examples:
-
The F-word has so much use, because it can literally mean anything by context.
Something bad happens “Oh f—!”
Something amazing happens “Oh F—!”
You know the difference by context alone. You can hear it in your mind. F—'s utility is high. Does this make it low brow? To some. But a skilled writer can make it characteristic, even universal and inventive. Motherf—er evolved along with some many other uses. After all F— is Neil Gaiman’s favorite word for a reason. -
When’s the last time you heard pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? Have you ever? It is completely unused–even in it’s community setting–because of its difficult utility, over-complication, and actual pretentiousness in creating an intellectual club for those who know it, use it, etc… The obvious preference instead of this word, which means the same thing, is phrasal: “chronic lung disease caused by the inhalation of volcanic dust.” When definitions are easier than words, words die.
Thus: Words are not everything. They are NOT our priority. Expression, emotion, and conveyance matter far more to a work.This means an author is often acting as a translator between their world and ours. Compromises must be made. Even Tolkien knew this. But so many are the next Tolkien, despite the reality that most will never care to create such a vast vast glossary, and further still most will never care to read it.
I am a Tolkien fan. Friends of mine are more hardcore than I am. Yet, most still would not make his works and vast lore the subject of their preferred reading and understanding, because the payoff is too small. It’s a small token in the community of Geekdom to be the expert debating other “experts”, which 99.99999% of the general public couldn’t care less about it. And then it hits this reality: Who made the actual money? The Experts or the Translators to masses? The latter group, because they’re the ones who made Tolkien’s vast work more accessible.
So, write what you love, but don’t believe that your intellect needs to be paraded before the world in a vast new word count glossary. That’s not writing. That’s stroking one’s ego.
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So, what I am hearing is a request to add a custom dictionary. You can add unique words and spellings on off but not in mass.
I add unique words and spelling as I write but I understand the desire to have al my terms mass imported if I had already created the file containing them all.
Is it possible to add a new dictionary?
It is possible to replace the default dictionary, which may not be what you’re looking for.
But if that works for you, see this thread for details: Enhanced Windows dictionary options?
Best,
Jim
For Windows there’s Lexique Pro.
Thanks, Jim, but it’s not what I am looking for but thought it might be a solution for @ Nobbo
Hi everyone! I have now been using Scriv for over a year and I must confess to NOT being much of a fan now. I am trying to write encyclopedia / instruction manual type books with huge new vocabularies and these seem to be the TWO THINGS Scrivener is not set up to handle.
I need to set up my own dictionaries, as do many other Scrivener users I would imagine. Standard dictionaries do not contain technical jargon for all sorts of specialist subjects, do not contain placenames, do not contain foreign words, and certainly do not contain “fantasy” words. The dictionary in Scrivener is not very good anyway, it is way too picky over the distinction between US/UK English, which is very blurred now, and its vocabulary range is basic. I have THOUSANDS of words I want to add to the spellchecker and grammar checker. I have for example, many nouns with non-standard plurals that are based on Latin, Greek and German words. These words sit at the heart of my writing - they ARE the writing FFS!!! - so I find it entirely wrong that they are a side thought in Scrivener.
I am also creating many texts that require a sort of database / mail merge fields function with repeated types of information fields that must be completed for each individual thing under each category. This is very hard to do in Scrivener as it has no database capabilities, no mail merge function, and I am limited to TWO PAGES ONLY!!! to be open with one Binder. I am hop-hoppity-hopping around like a demented frog trying to keep up with repeated similar data pages that run into the hundreds. I appreciate the database . mail merge is probably a big undertaking, but allowing multiple pages to be open and multiple Binders would not be. I would happily open say 100 pages and steadily work through them all, which is in itself archaic but acceptable, but I cannot even do that!!!
Much of my writing is non-linear and similar to an ecyclopedia or an instruction manual, and Scrivener is really struggling with it.
I do not want “a” customer dictionary, I want as many as is required, along with grammar rules if possible. I would probably have 5 custom dictionaries - one for places, one for magic, one for religious terms, one for creatures, and one for general terms on a whole host of topics like architecture, weapons, technology, specialist jargon and the like. I would prefer to keep them all separate, and possibly even use them as a base to create glossaries.
I am creating new words all the time. I would like for example to have a Place Name Dictionary for all the new and altered place names I use - for example in Italy I use the Lombard names in Lombardy, and the Latin names around Rome. I also use the Latin adjective forms for many places, such as Cantuariensis for Canterbury. There are THOUSANDS of these alone. I have also created a whole technical vocabulary for Religions, using Greek and Latin. It is this that prompted my move to Scrivener, because Word kept falling over as it has a limited number of “spelling mistakes” it will show. I slowly enter words into the dictionary when I am happy with them, but I use the “error” notice to show things are still undecided. It is a HUGE taks in itself managing all the new vocabulary, let alone the bigger project it is part of!
This aspect of Scrivener has been the biggest failing and disappointment for me. I tried writing with OpenOffice and it was little better than Word, but it had this option in it, where you could enter any amount of Customer Dictionaries AND also it would show them all so you could chose when you got the in-screen menu up to add to a dictionary. I would then open them in NotePad++ to make edits, but this is not ideal. I want them integral to my writing documents, much like the Icons I have created are in Scrivener.
I think Scrivener is suffering a little bit from being created initially on MacApple-Happy-In-Its-Niche, with the original concept working with the pros and around the various cons that this offers. This was not the most solid foundation I do not think, as I would have put open and adjustable dictionaries and grammar rules at the heart, then built everything else around it, with various incremental changes and additions as new versions were released.
My priorities would be:
- Words and Grammer
- Document Structuring: Books / related Series of Books / Chapters / Indices / Titles & Headings / Tables of Content / Footnotes & Endnotes / Page and Content Numbering / etc
- Document Editing & Proofreading functionality / Search-Find-Replace / tracking changes
- Fonts / Page Layout / Printing / Publishing / Digital Media such as webpages and ebooks / etc
- Graphics like images and tables links and importing, keeping these bulky items “in” the documents for visualising purposes, but “out” of the document for file size purposes (Word is terrible for this, with documents becoming huge and unstable when images are added)
- Frills and Niceties - fancy font effects for headings, advanced word count tools and targets / mail merge databases / project sharing / etc
Something like that! 