Word Creators

Nokota Horses by François Marchal
licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
(The picture will make sense at the end.)

Who comes up with words anyway?

I was writing a piece a while back and used the word “penultimate” incorrectly. I thought it meant “more than ultimate” or “ultimate-est.” I knew I should look it up before I submitted the piece to the newspaper, but I forgot or got in a hurry or some such excuse. (As we all know, any excuse will do.) At any rate, I sent it in and looked up the word the next...