The decisive distinction is between lexical status and formal technique. “Weird-looking” is not a provenance category.
Axis one: what kind of lexical object is it?
| Class | Meaning here | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Probable internal formation | A word-level form strongly supported as locally manufactured; no global priority claim. | Neologisms |
| Nonce formation candidate | A one-off word-like object that may be locally made but has not survived strict provenance review. | Unsettled words |
| Productive error / corruption | A familiar form altered by mishearing, respelling, segmentation, memory or useful wrongness. | Lexical mutations |
| Rare / transplanted word | An existing archaic, technical, foreign or subcultural term moved into a local field. | Rare & transplanted |
| Semantic refunctioning | An existing word given a durable corpus-specific job. | Refunctioning |
| Generated candidate | A form produced by a quoted generative system inside a source. | Machine-coined words |
Axis two: what formal technique is operating?
| Technique | Why it is separate |
|---|---|
| Distinctive phraseology | Invention at phrase/sentence scale does not become neologia merely because the phrase is new. |
| Sentence-compound / hyphen engine | Syntax is temporarily compressed into morphology; structurally lexical-looking, but still phrase-level. |
| Sound-writing | Orthography follows mouth, stress, stutter or percussion rather than dictionary spelling. |
| Proper-name mutation | Names drift under sound and role pressure; the interesting event is mutation, not necessarily lexical invention. |
| Counterfeit terminology | A form borrows the authority-sound of a diagnosis, discipline, genre, office or technical apparatus. |
Result: the same item can have a formal-technique tag without being promoted into the neologism register. This is how the wiki preserves maximum linguistic detail without inflating lexical claims.