Debate only works when everyone shares the same interface, and made-up words break that. If someone can invent a term mid-debate, they can smuggle in an undefined idea, dodge accountability, and shift the burden to everyone else to guess what they mean. That doesn't scale. The other side will probably say language evolves and creativity matters, and sure, it does in branding or poetry. But a debate is closer to a product demo: clarity and testability beat clever naming. Use plain words, define your terms, and make your claim checkable.

Imagine a founder pitching investors with terms only the founding team understands. Even if the idea is real, the room can't evaluate it, so the pitch fails. My opponent says made-up words are fine as long as adjudicators can grasp the intent. But that's the bottleneck: intent isn't a shared standard, and debate needs checkable claims, not private definitions retrofitted after the fact. Sure, language evolves, but creativity belongs in branding. In debate, made-up words are a feature nobody else can toggle. Plain terms and explicit definitions scale.

The real question isn't whether language can evolve; it's whether a debate can run on private, mid-stream definitions. My opponent's own wording makes the case for me: I can't audit the claims, only guess at intent, and that shifts all the verification cost to the listener. In startup terms, made-up words are like shipping an undocumented API change and calling it innovation. Sure, language evolves, and creativity is great in branding or poetry. But debate needs interoperability: define terms plainly so claims stay checkable and everyone can scale the argument.