The concept of "NonWords" - is unique strings of characters that do not correspond to standard words, but can convey specialized meaning.
The key points are:
- NonWords cannot start with a digit, to distinguish them from numerical values.
- NonWords can contain a mix of letters, digits, and select special characters like underscores or hyphens.
- NonWords should generally be 4-10 characters in length, to balance conciseness and distinctiveness.
- Capitalization, camelCase, and other formatting can be used to enhance readability and convey additional meaning within the NonWord.
- NonWords should avoid using common prefixes, suffixes, or letter combinations found in standard words to maintain their uniqueness.
Regarding the potential number of NonWords that can be formed: With 36 possible characters (26 letters, 10 digits, and a few special characters), the total number of possible 4-10 character
NonWords is in the range of 1.3 million to 3.6 trillion unique combinations.
In comparison, the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary contains approximately 171,476 words currently in use, with many more that have fallen out of common use.
The material suggests that the large potential space for NonWords makes them a powerful tool for creating personalized, contextual metadata strings and private language systems. The key is to strategically select and structure the NonWords to convey specific meaning and associations within a given domain. The material also mentions the use of "TransClusion" via TiddlyWiki as a potentially effective way to build "Prompts" or "Asks" for bots.