So fantasy writers love making up words, often by putting together two existing words to make a neat combination.
I don’t recommend creating some fantasy race called the “Shardborn,” however neat it may sound.
Because it means “born in dung.”
I have problems with Avatar: the last Airbender.
Is that word in there? Or does it make up some other term with real meaning?
Airbender.
Somehow, I always think plumbing.
Ah. <g> My eye slid right past that one. Yes, even when there isn’t a specific and distracting meaning, you’ve got no guarantee your audience will get the right vibe off the word you just made up.
Unless your alien race is actually born in dung.
Then it might be appropriate.
This should be a real story/book/movie/thing. It’d be awesome. Just sayin’.
I might be weird.
Always a good replacement for words like bastard or other insults.
Always google names first…always google names first….always google names first…
This is why I taught a friend a racial slur once. I was talking about how my grandmother would quote racial slurs but not use them herself but would not even quote “the f word,” and that I used similar circumlocutions for racial slurs like “the n word” and “the k word” but was fine quoting someone as saying “fuck” even if it was not a context in which I’d use that particular word myself. And one of my friends said, “Um…what’s ‘the k word’?” I tried giving her a hint as to what ethnicity it was applied to, and she really just didn’t know it. I wrestled with myself over it, but since she writes speculative fiction, I didn’t want her sending out a story with the planet of the K—s with their quaint K— tribal customs and upsetting some poor slush reader and embarrassing herself.
My guess is that you’re referring to a Jewish slur, as it’s the only one I can think of off the top of my head that starts with K.
I know what you mean, though. “Traditional” profanity — things having to do with sex and religion and bodily function — doesn’t bother me much at all anymore. But offensive slurs? I have a remarkably hard time making myself quote them directly, even if it’s in the context of discussion rather than use.
…and your point is?
