Editing Interlingua (section)

====Usefulness and clarity====
As noted above, the only limits to free word-building in Interlingua are ''clarity'' and ''usefulness''. These concepts are touched upon here:

Any number of words could be formed by stringing roots and affixes together, but some would be more useful than others. For example, the English word ''rainer'' means 'a person who rains', but most people would be surprised that it is included in English dictionaries. The corresponding Interlingua word {{lang|ia|pluviator}} is unlikely to appear in a dictionary because of its lack of utility. Interlingua, like any traditional language, ''could'' build up large numbers of these words, but this would be undesirable.

Gode stressed the principle of ''clarity'' in free word-building. As Gode noted, the noun {{lang|ia|marinero}} ('mariner') can be formed from the adjective {{lang|ia|marin}}, because its meaning is clear. The noun {{lang|ia|marina}} meaning 'navy' cannot be formed, because its meaning would not be clear from the adjective and suffix that gave rise to it.