Scatosyntheton

In recent months I've noticed an increase in people who want to offer critical, opinionated reviews of books they haven't read, more often than not, in an effort to prevent anyone else reading the book. This is, on the face of it, such an odd idea that many people are surprised it happens.

It happens a lot; it's not new, though I think the fact that anyone (like me, even, right now!) can opine on the 'net makes the problem more numerous. It is in part related to people who want to ban books that they take issue with; like the parents of Litchfield, N.H. who want to ban books they haven't read, but are sure they'll be offended by, or any number of people who have objected to any number of literary works that are generally considered classics, but that they not only haven't read, they don't want anyone else to read them, either..

It occurred to me, after a recent online burst of people fulminating about a book they hadn't read, and in the process making it abundantly clear that they hadn't read the book in question because they got basic plot items woefully wrong, that we needed and completely lacked a proper term for this particular rhetorical trope. My mentor invented the Greek-inspired skotison, which means, literally "darken it," to refer to the practice of deliberately indulging in overly complex prose meant to be difficult, if not impossible, to understand.

In crude terms, I suppose I'm looking for a Greek-inspired term that equates with "makes stuff up"; I'd considered cacosyntheton, but I note that it's replaced the earlier cacosyndeton for "improper, or ugly word-order." That's forced me to use my second option, scatosyntheton, for, well, "making crap up," and yes, it's cognate with scatological. Go on, try it out: next time someone you know starts going on and on about a book they haven't read—tell them they're indulging in the vice of scatosyntheton.