Each morning before work, I have this little routine that I go through. I come here, FunnyOldWorld, and check for any new comments and follow links to other blogs to comment on. Then, most mornings, I also check my Facebook profile to see if anybody loves me. I have come to think of this routine as Funnybooking. It's a little bit German: taking two words and cramming them together to make one word describing the combination of the original two things! But I realise it's also human nature. Language is dynamic, we create new words all the time. People under the age of 15 may find it hard to believe that "internet" is quite a new word. Most people probably don't know that "ether" was a word which, a few hundred years ago, described the invisible medium through which light, heat, and electromagnetic waves were believed to travel. Of course, that theory was debunked, but today we have ethernet cables through which information is believed to travel!

My dad is a whizz at making up words. One I will never forget is "skillydappling". This described our labrador in the act of running through a puddle flicking up droplets with her paws and nose.

Then we have our good friend Donn, or HomoEscapeons, who has made an artform out of adapting words to his unique purposes and thought processes. ZimBOBway is a recent example from his blog.

Whilst these two examples are unlikely ever to make it into any official dictionary, they are wonderfully demonstrative of the inventiveness and adaptability of the human brain.

Some examples that did make it into a dictionary (of sorts) are those by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. As they state in their introduction to The Meaning Of Liff: "In Life, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist. On the other hand, the world is littererd with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places. Our job, as wee see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society."

We have mother's day, father's day, Christmas, Easter, World Youth Day, and countless other celebrations of mundane things and people. I hereby create Word Day. Today, Wednesday 2nd July, is a day for the creation of new words and the celebration of old ones. I want comments: What are your favourite words? Have you made up any new ones? These can be in any language (even Tolkein's Elvish if you like!), from any time or place, especially the ones within your head. Bring it on!