Last week, I sat and watched the bombogenesis blow huge snowflakes across the playground at our school. Bombogenesis… really? What a surprise to learn the word is real. A Google search reveals a definition and everything that comes with any other real word; yet, it is not listed on dictionary.com. So, is it a word? NOAA says it is. Whether it is “officially” a word or not, it sure is fun to say, even if we don’t exactly know its meaning (unless we happen to be meteorologists, of course).

I love wordplay. I make words up constantly, complete with definitions. Several years ago, in an effort to share my enthusiasm for words (or “wordthusiasm”) with students, we studied the origin of words and made our own dictionary, creating new words whose meanings were based on their origin. It was great fun and supported students’ continued vocabulary development. Continue reading →