how does the brain create brand new words?

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Is it started in Werneke’s area (or Broca’s area, can’t remember which does what at the moment)? How does the brain decide “oh I need a new word to describe this, here’s something I pulled out of thin air?” Like I called a pain I would get in my stomach as a kid “tummy crustles.” Obviously “crustles” isn’t an English word, so how and why did my brain decide that was the word it was gonna use to describe my pain?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Creativity. You could have merged together “rustles” with “cramp” or just added a c to the beginning because it was amusing to 8 year old you. Or you just randomly thought of it and it stuck.

For an example not involving language, imagine a purple creature the size of a chihuahua with a handlebar mustache and monocle. Chances are, you can picture this thing that does not actually exist in real life. Why did I choose these specific features? Because I was actively trying to be random and then when I added the handlebar mustache my brain associated the monocle with it so I added that too.