neologism
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4 linked references
October 20th, 2025
- it's "try" without the effort/commitment
- = "give it a go"
- fake etymology:
- = "F(uckaround)AND"
- actual etymology: middle english!
- “to try, attempt, tempt, test, examine, explore, search out, seek to know, experience, visit”
- "seek to know"! so good
- technically a relogism, not a neologism: it's a word from middle english!
- revival / archaeological neologism
- (private claude chat where I was ideating)
- (huh, "fend" "find" "fund" (all infinitive verbs) & "fond"/"fawned" (different a la cot/caught!) "fiend", "finned", "found", "feigned", "phoned"... massive minimal set!)
- beet, bit, bait, bet, bat, bite, bot, bought, boat, but, boot, bout
- re grammar: "I'll fand eating it" vs "I'll fand to eat it"
- me:
- huh, "try" has this property where it composes with other words
- "I'm gonna try eating this" -> "I'm gonna fand eating this"
- "I'm gonna fand going for a walk"
- is this a special thing in english grammar, or do all verbs technically have this option they just don't make much sense
- claude
- This is a really interesting grammatical question! Let me think through it...
- "Try" takes a gerund or infinitive complement:
- "try eating this" / "try to eat this"
- "fand eating this" / "fand to eat this" (?)
- Not all verbs can do this. Compare:
- "I enjoy eating" ✓ but "I enjoy to eat" ✗
- "I want to eat" ✓ but "I want eating" ✗
- "I like eating/to eat" ✓ (both work!)
- The verbs that take these complements are often:
- Aspectual: start, stop, finish, continue + gerund
- Modal-ish: want, need, hope + infinitive
- Attitude/attempt: try, like, love, hate + both
- Perception: see, watch, hear + bare infinitive or gerund
- "Try" is in a special class of verbs that can take both forms, and there's actually a semantic difference:
- "try eating vegetables" = experiment with vegetable-eating as a practice
- "try to eat vegetables" = make an effort to eat vegetables
- For "fand" to work naturally, it should probably pattern like "try" - taking both gerunds and infinitives.
- "I'll fand eating it" - explore the experience
"I'll fand to fix it" - hmm, this feels slightly less natural? - Maybe "fand" works best with gerunds, since it's more about experiencing the doing than attempting toward a goal?
- M
- that does feel right! and gets at some of the existing range in "try"'s connotations.
- maybe makes sense to start there. but it would also be cool connote the towardsness and purposefulness of "I'll fand to fix it" without any of the effort!
- Claude
- Yes! That's a really nice distinction to tease out:
- "I'll fand eating it" - exploratory experience, see how it goes
"I'll fand to fix it" - I have a goal/direction, but I'm not promising effort or success - The second one captures something like "I'll point myself at fixing it and see what happens" - there's intentionality and direction, but not striving.
- This is actually a subtle thing "try" does that gets muddled:
- "I'll try eating healthier" (experiment/explore)
- "I'll try to fix it" (effort toward goal)
- But also sometimes: "I'll try to fix it" (casual, like "I'll take a crack at it")
- If "fand" could cleanly take both forms:
- fand + gerund = exploratory engagement
- fand + infinitive = goal-directed but non-effortful attempt
- That would be incredibly useful! It separates:
- The experiential vs purposeful axis
- While keeping both firmly in the "no promises about effort" zone
- So "I'll fand to fix it" means: "I have the goal of fixing it in mind, I'll point myself at it, we'll see what happens" - purposeful but not straining.
- Does that capture what you want?
sem
- I'm valuing having "sem" defined by reference to "semantic reaction" although of course a formal definition—especially of a #neologism—is unlikely to capture the in-practice-meaning of a word.