Coinage

I have coined the following words recently:

cowichanize - the act of making something more like a cowichan sweater
ex. "I am going to cowichanize that cardigan."

bunaded - the act of being clothed in a bunad
ex. "On the 17th of May I'm going to get all bunaded up and watch the parade."

I used the word "cowichanize" on one of the boards in Ravelry and then all of a sudden it kind of took off and now several people have started using it. Correctly in sentences, no less.

I find that a tad odd because I've attempted to create my own words before and it never quite worked. It's all well and good to make something like that up, and to have it make sense and be useful, but if you can't get other people to use it too then you haven't really made up a new word, have you?

But then all of a sudden I reveal my secret plans to make a cowichan inspired fitted jacket out of White Buffalo wool (discontinued :( ) inherited from family friends and coworkers and scrounged at thrift stores. Now everyone's using my word and I wasn't even trying. I kind of feel like Anne Bradstreet's author to her book.

"Bunaded" on the other hand, seems to be taking more time to catch on...