Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Invented Words

 Recently when I said "My forgettory works better than my memory" the person I was speaking with told me they loved the word I'd invented and planned to use it themselves.

When I was a kid I liked to invent words.  For example I'd say, "millions and billions and trigadeerdillions" to describe extremely large amounts.

Long ago the mathematician Edward Kasner got help from his nine year old nephew to invent a word meaning the number, one, followed by a hundred zeros. That word was googol.

Of course that word, with a change in the spelling, is now famous as Google. I wouldn't be surprised if it has been used a googol of times.

I had no idea what the name of Kasner's nephew was, but his juvenile creativity helped to create a word known to almost everyone.

I wanted to know that boy's name so I googled it. His name was Milton Sirotta.

In case you didn't notice, google is now a verb.


No comments: