The Japan Times offers its take on the process of creating neologisms.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?ed20050522a1.html

Thanks, Father Steve. I think they take a rather po-faced view, not giving enough credit to the taste and auditory impact of a coined word... but that's just me.

btw, you may want to put an l on the end of the link (html)

Obrigado, Mav. URL detruncated.

Here's the list to which the Japan Times was reacting/responding.

http://www.m-w.com/info/favorite.htm

Call me po-faced then, because I agree with their view, especially of the realy strained ones like phonecrastinate and the tediously pretentious lingweenie. I concur with their choices, but would also say that the ones I reject don't taste good, and their impact is the auditory equivalent of a damp squib. But then, I don't speak Wanglish.

hah, yes, I very much agree about the strained efforts. :) But I flatly disagree that a neologism has to be shorter to be of value. That runs counter to much observable fact of language formation, and is just a typical prescriptivist bit of nonsense.

>But I flatly disagree that a neologism has to be shorter to be of value.

Sorry, I missed them saying that. I'm with you on that one.

Ginormous is a neologism? I can remember my father using it back when I was a mere slip of a lad, indeed he probably still does when the circumstances seem to call for it.

Bingley

Yes, I've been puzzling over that, Bing - it was common currency in Kent as a kid. It's the chattering effect of the web, I think!

it was common currency in Kent

Just another indication of the lag between coining and first sighting in print.

Valid point, Fong. Any idea if there is any earlier citation from any of the normal sources though?

more like an example of over there vs. over here - it's in OED, shorter Oxford, Cambridge; first attested by OED in Partridge ('48) and Granville ('62) slang dict's. here're the "real" citations:

1970 A. REID Confessions of Hitch-hiker vi. 45 We went to a posh café...The prices were ginormous. 1976 Scotsman 20 Nov. 10/2 How about froggies filled with pot-pourri from small to gi-normous, as Just Us describe them. 1977 Economist 8 Oct. 98/3 The state company Egam, declared bust last spring,..is going to cost considerably more than the £500 billion..earmarked by the government last June, probably a ginormous £1,700 billion. 1986 Sunday Express (Colour Suppl.) 23 Mar. 70/3 Since Brands Hatch, doors have opened and it's possible to make gi-normous money.

it's just a portmanteau word, of course: gigantic + enormous. (listed as such in Wikipedia's list of ~ words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portmanteaus)

Thanks, tsuwm. I still can't particularly understand why it's lit the touchpaper recently but!