Grahame Coats, the slippery talent agent in Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys, does worse things to the English language than he does to his clients... almost.

Coats’s favourite word is “absatively”, a term described in the novel as “a car-crash between absolutely and positively” that sets lead character Fat Charlie’s teeth on edge.

Here we present eight made-up words used in everyday life with a similar effect. How many do you use?