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I think that by "can guess fake words" in the title OP means that the tool can come up with a plausible guess for the etymology, even for fake words. Unfortunat

I think that by "can guess fake words" in the title OP means that the tool can come up with a plausible guess for the etymology, even for fake words. Unfortunately, the more common reading of that phrase is that it can tell fake words from real ones

andrelaszlo 2y ago
Agree. It does a good job at coming up with a plausible meaning of novel words like "multiarborality" → "the state of relating to many trees" but it doesn't indicate that this is a "fake" word even though I just made it up.
- stavros 2y ago
  If you had used that word in a sentence, eg "what I like about this park is its multiarborality", I would have immediately understood what you meant.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  >> even though I just made it up One person inventing a word that they have never heard before doesn't negate the possibility of that word being in common use somewhere. https://books.google.ca/books/about/Arboreality.html?id=S95YzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.ca/books/about/Arboreality.html?id=S95Y... "An expansion of the 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winning story. Arboreality is a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and the winner of the 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction."
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Doesn't look fake to me. English is not a closed-world language, as far as I know. Between things like "verbing" and "nouning", and the cultural acceptance of doing them in casual speech, I'd say English is a great language because you get to "invent" new words on the fly, and your interlocutors know what you mean. In this sense, even if no one before ever said or wrote "multiarborality", it's pretty clear what it means (as long as you don't misread it), and IMHO it's perfectly fine to derive its etymology by deconstructing it back to "common" words and pulling etymology on those, recursively.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > I'd say English is a great language because you get to "invent" new words on the fly, and your interlocutors know what you mean. I bet you could do that with most languages. I don’t see why English would be especially great at it.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      I bet you could, but in the other languages I know, I believe it would be frowned upon. The cultural acceptance of this feature is just as important as the feature itself.
      - latexr 2y ago
        Conversely, in the other languages I know I see it happening all the time. I don’t think frowning on it has to do with the language, but with the person. There are sticklers and SNOOTs¹ everywhere, even in English. ¹ http://www.jamesgerity.com/biblio/authority.pdf http://www.jamesgerity.com/biblio/authority.pdf
    - keiferski 2y ago
      I can think of three reasons: 1. English doesn’t really have an official regulation body, like French does. 2. The lack of cases and complex grammar. Any language with a case system is going to have more complexity when it comes to adding new words, because otherwise you end up with awkward looking constructions. 3. English itself is something of a hybrid between Latin and Germanic languages, which to my knowledge gives it a more diverse ancestry than the typical language. Ergo having a new word of dubious origins is more natural.
      - latexr 2y ago
        I won’t comment on the second reason, since that seems like something a linguist should address, but I don’t really buy the first and last reasons: 1. Doesn’t seem relevant, as we’re discussing making up a word in conversation and not putting it into dictionaries. 3. Especially in this globalised world, English loanwords are everywhere. No one bats an eye at it and plenty of languages distort those words to fit their own language. For example: when referring to an internet post you say you’re “posting”; another language would keep the “post” but replace the “ing” with the modifier appropriate for them.
- andrelaszlo 2y ago
  I agree with both comments, I just wanted to find a word that an AI wouldn't have heard before, not a word that is "fake". I don't even know what a fake word is. https://deconstructor.ayush.digital/w/flonkers https://deconstructor.ayush.digital/w/flonkers "Flonkers: A made-up word, likely humorous". Aren't all words made up? Edit: This one, unlike my previous example, is actually in use - flonkers: an animal that looks fat but is actually just fluffy.
  - nhinck3 2y ago
    turboencabulation, hydrocoptic. I bet you could look up a bunch of sci-fi for other examples of completely made up words
dizhn 2y ago
Which it should since it knows all the words.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Yeah I just filled in "inbreathiate", which should be a fake / made up word but this tool generates a meaning anyway... which is also neat, but the "can guess fake words" description isn't accurate. At least it did say "slartibartfast" was a fictional character.
- muzani 2y ago
  I think OP means that it can make a guess at what a nonexistent word means, something Wiktionary and urban dic doesn't do as well.

andrelaszlo 2y ago

Agree. It does a good job at coming up with a plausible meaning of novel words like "multiarborality" → "the state of relating to many trees" but it doesn't indicate that this is a "fake" word even though I just made it up.

stavros 2y ago
If you had used that word in a sentence, eg "what I like about this park is its multiarborality", I would have immediately understood what you meant.
sandworm101 2y ago
>> even though I just made it up One person inventing a word that they have never heard before doesn't negate the possibility of that word being in common use somewhere. https://books.google.ca/books/about/Arboreality.html?id=S95YzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.ca/books/about/Arboreality.html?id=S95Y... "An expansion of the 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winning story. Arboreality is a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and the winner of the 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction."
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Doesn't look fake to me. English is not a closed-world language, as far as I know. Between things like "verbing" and "nouning", and the cultural acceptance of doing them in casual speech, I'd say English is a great language because you get to "invent" new words on the fly, and your interlocutors know what you mean. In this sense, even if no one before ever said or wrote "multiarborality", it's pretty clear what it means (as long as you don't misread it), and IMHO it's perfectly fine to derive its etymology by deconstructing it back to "common" words and pulling etymology on those, recursively.
- latexr 2y ago
  > I'd say English is a great language because you get to "invent" new words on the fly, and your interlocutors know what you mean. I bet you could do that with most languages. I don’t see why English would be especially great at it.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    I bet you could, but in the other languages I know, I believe it would be frowned upon. The cultural acceptance of this feature is just as important as the feature itself.
    - latexr 2y ago
      Conversely, in the other languages I know I see it happening all the time. I don’t think frowning on it has to do with the language, but with the person. There are sticklers and SNOOTs¹ everywhere, even in English. ¹ http://www.jamesgerity.com/biblio/authority.pdf http://www.jamesgerity.com/biblio/authority.pdf
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I can think of three reasons: 1. English doesn’t really have an official regulation body, like French does. 2. The lack of cases and complex grammar. Any language with a case system is going to have more complexity when it comes to adding new words, because otherwise you end up with awkward looking constructions. 3. English itself is something of a hybrid between Latin and Germanic languages, which to my knowledge gives it a more diverse ancestry than the typical language. Ergo having a new word of dubious origins is more natural.
    - latexr 2y ago
      I won’t comment on the second reason, since that seems like something a linguist should address, but I don’t really buy the first and last reasons: 1. Doesn’t seem relevant, as we’re discussing making up a word in conversation and not putting it into dictionaries. 3. Especially in this globalised world, English loanwords are everywhere. No one bats an eye at it and plenty of languages distort those words to fit their own language. For example: when referring to an internet post you say you’re “posting”; another language would keep the “post” but replace the “ing” with the modifier appropriate for them.
andrelaszlo 2y ago
I agree with both comments, I just wanted to find a word that an AI wouldn't have heard before, not a word that is "fake". I don't even know what a fake word is. https://deconstructor.ayush.digital/w/flonkers https://deconstructor.ayush.digital/w/flonkers "Flonkers: A made-up word, likely humorous". Aren't all words made up? Edit: This one, unlike my previous example, is actually in use - flonkers: an animal that looks fat but is actually just fluffy.
- nhinck3 2y ago
  turboencabulation, hydrocoptic. I bet you could look up a bunch of sci-fi for other examples of completely made up words

dizhn 2y ago

Which it should since it knows all the words.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

Yeah I just filled in "inbreathiate", which should be a fake / made up word but this tool generates a meaning anyway... which is also neat, but the "can guess fake words" description isn't accurate. At least it did say "slartibartfast" was a fictional character.

muzani 2y ago
I think OP means that it can make a guess at what a nonexistent word means, something Wiktionary and urban dic doesn't do as well.