I dislike, detest, loathe and abhor cleaning the oven. You could even say I hate it. But I love a clean oven. So why are there no appropriate synonyms for that?
The quick and easy synonym finder supplied by my word processor can suggest only “worship” and “adore.” Come on, people! What’s wrong with the English language?
We have “like” to fall back on but if that wasn’t bland and ubiquitous enough, Facebook has ruined it forever. It doesn’t have enough punch anyway. I sometimes revert to “overly fond of” but that’s not going to work for a freshly-cleaned porcelain-coated steel box.
We need to coin a new word to convey something stronger than mere “like” but not so special as “love,” a word we ought to reserve for feelings directed toward and inspired by people. Or God. Or at least animate objects, like the parakeet who sings with joy when we come home.
I love chocolate. She loves my new hairdo. Everybody loves Raymond. He loves football. They love their new school uniforms.
“I love you, honey.”
“You do? More than chocolate?”
I’ve been trying to solve this on my own. I’ve come up with “blove” and “slike” so far, from brainstorming. Either one would work really well in literature, I think. In conversation, though, they are easily lost–mistaken for slurred speech.
Any creative writers out there who agree we need to coin a new word? Or, has this problem been solved by some wonderful wordsmith but the word hasn’t gotten out yet? Are there any words left?
Perhaps we could recycle something from the previous century that has fallen into obscurity, much like “gay” and “twitter.”
I’d blove to hear your thoughts on this matter! I’m sure you’ll come up with ideas readers will slike.
janetshort 
Well, I was bored with all those words such as like, love, although God is love, and we can love and are certainly susceptible to a fall into love. How about the word cathect? Definition -to concentrate psychic energy on some particular person (uhhh don’t really like that) or thing or idea…much more appropriate, I think. Over use of the word love is why this word “cathect” was origianally an attention grabber years ago. You amaze me with your topics!
Thanks, Carole! I, too, am amazed at some of the stuff that comes out of my brain. Do you ever wonder What causes a thought to generate?
I coined a word one time. When we get in the car my husband’s elbow is always on the thingy between us. I need him to move his elbow so I can put my purse there. I started saying “jelbow” and he knew what I meant. One day my daughter and son-in-law were riding somewhere with me. She got in the back; he in the front. I said from habit “jelbow” and he moved his elbow and then realized he’d understood what I wanted from a madeup word he’d never heard before; kinda blew his mind! :o)
While I understand the need for a vital, growing language, I’m of the opinion that there is far too much word-coining going on, particularly of the street-lingo type. Perhaps it’s because I’m on the ‘word of the day’ e-mail list for Urban Dictionary, where I thumbs-down about as many as I thumbs-up (when I take time to thumb at all). In this, case, you’ve already been beaten to the punch on ‘blove’ which is now overused in general, and has (according to Urban Dictionary) a variety of definitions, from “big love” (bigger than your intended word coin) or something like a ‘bromance’ type of guy-like. There are also a couple darker meanings which would give me pause from ever using the term unless I were particularly careful of its context. Unfortunately, ‘slike’ is also taken, either as a contraction of “It’s like…” or a second definition, another vulgar word blend with a nefarious meaning (again, dependent upon context). I’d avoid it too.
One of my favorite ever coinages was an accidental one by a friend in an IM: He’d meant to type ‘denomination’ but it came out ‘demoniation.’ We thought it was perfect and held onto that one, since at last count there are several hundreds of them bickering amongst themselves and causing infernal division in the Church.
Opinions always welcome here. For me, slike is a contraction of “I just like,” something I might say instead of “I love” an inanimate object. Any ideas for other ways to express enthusiastic liking are most welcome. As for UD, it is a great help but certainly not the definitive (IMO) on any subject. As you cite, their definitions can vary widely! 🙂
JJ, I’ve found that typos generate the most interesting new words. One time by mistake I typed demoncrats, but since the person I was writing to hates democrats, I decided it was actually very appropriate!
Roberta, I appreciate your input! I slike Demoncrats. Maybe in fairness, we should also coin Republicrams? Republibrats? (Think Ted Cruz’s infamous filibuster.) 😀