Building English, one adjectivised medical condition at a time

Today I'm concerned about the word 'halitosical’, which basically means ‘of the nature of a breath condition’. Or at least, that’s what I’m deciding it means. It’s basically the adjective form of 'bad breath’ that doesn't officially exist - by which I mean, it’s not in the Oxford English Dictionary, a fairly solid resource for words that are real and words that are kblupt.

Just to be fair, though, I googled 'halitosical definition’, and got three results. That was thrilling enough in its own right for being such a rare combination of words to not even generate a full page of results, but the real point of this was that none of those results I did get were definitions, from the OED or otherwise. This doesn't change the fact, though, that if you search for 'halitosical’ on its own you get 66 results of people who have used this word, in defiant ignorance of the fact that it doesn't actually exist.

Anyway, I joined the halitosical party (which would be the worst party ever) because I needed the aforementioned adjectival form for my book, and it was either that or 'bad breathy’. The only other option that OED does have an entry for is 'halituous’, but since said word only takes the Latin root 'halitus’, for breath, and omits the suffix 'osis’ that denotes the medical condition aspect, 'halituous’ only means 'of the nature of breath/vapour’, and so wasn't quite sufficient.

Basically what this all means is that I've discovered myself to be part of a small group of people who have thought fuck it, bent the language to their will and made a new word happen when they needed it. I'm a witness to a live change to the English language, and it’s pretty cool. A prescriptivist like the person I raged at on Facebook last week when she sniped at people for daring to use non-standard English in conversation would probably be reloading their shotgun right now, but fuck 'em; this is what our language is - effervescent, constantly in flux, changing to the needs of the speaker - and I wouldn't take it any other way.

“Swelled with the potency of potential agency, Marcus found that he just couldn’t quite bring himself to go along with letting this halitosical hustler nick his stuff.”

P.S, or more aptly, Note-to-self: In delving the etymology of 'halitosis’ I've also discovered that a more apt translation into layman’s English would be 'breath condition’, not 'bad’ breath’ as I've always considered it. The more you know.