PBS has an interesting website on American English at http://www.pbs.org/speak/ that they title “Do you speak American?” One fun page at the site is an interactive quiz to see if you can match a speaker to a region of the country: [Link].
Another page explains how various presidents have coined new words throughout the years, such as “administration,” “lunatic fringe,” and “misunderestimate”: [Link].
The article refers to one who coins new words as a neologist. My reaction to reading that was “Oh, they meant to say lexicographer.” But, it turns out that PBS has the better word. According to my dictionary, a lexicographer is “a writer, editor, or compiler of a dictionary.” However, neologize means “to make or use new words or create new meanings for existing words.” It would seem that a lexicographer is merely a person who records established definitions rather than the more creative neologist who coins entirely original meanings for words.
A lesser known corollary to the lexicographer [sic: neologist] rule is that a patentee is also entitled to be his or her own grammarian. See Chicago Steel Foundry Co. v. Burnside Steel Foundry Co., 132 F.2d 812, 814-15 (7th Cir. 1943), cited in Jonsson v. Stanley Works, 903 F.2d 812, 820-21 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
*By the way, while playing SCRABBLE over the holidays, I tried to explain to my family that as a patent attorney, I was entitled to be my own lexicographer [sic: neologist] when proposing new words on the board. They didn’t buy it.