"Gostak", a meaningless noun, occurs in the phrase "the gostak distims the doshes", which exemplifies how it is possible to derive meaning from the syntax of a sentence even if the referents of the terms are entirely unknown. It is an example of a nonce word. The phrase, coined in 1903 by Andrew Ingraham[1][2] became popularised through its quotation in 1923 by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in th