Is "new word" relative to when the work was written, or relative to now? For example, would Hindu Mythology be responsible for a neologism with "Sati", even if the mythology is older than dirt?
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That's an interesting point. As of November 2011, it seems like the system is "current neologisms plus some famous past examples." This could probably use some sort of consensus.
I would say "sati" wouldn't work, though, because "Sati" was already the goddess's name before it was adapted for the practice of "sati." And if you're thinking of the goddess's name itself, then that could be considered a "former neologism" — inasmuch as all words were "invented words" at some point — but then we're veering dangerously close to People Sit On Chairs.
How is it that H.P. Lovecraft invented the word "eldritch" when Robert Lewis Stevenson used it in Kidnapped? ("...whose voice had risen to a kind of eldritch singsong...)
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Rabbie Burns also used it in Tam O'Shanter ("So Maggie runs, the witches follow,/Wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollo"). Dictionary.com traces it back to the 1500s
. Pulled.
Should the hacker (in the original/Jargon File sense) metasyntactic variables be here? Foo, Bar, Baz, etc. See here.
Dread Sorcerer of Auchtermuchty
I was going to change nonce word to nonsense word until I looked it up on The Other Wiki.
I immediately thought of its other meaning.
Keeper of The Celestial Flame
The heck kind of a title is this? 'Understanding the Good'?