Hi
Did Roahl Dahl coin any adjectives that are now part of mainstream English? I though that he may have but I can’t find any offhand. I couldn’t find any websites listing adjectives he may have coined.
I look forward to your feedback.
You might start here.
From what I’m reading (on Dahl’s wiki page) “Scrumdiddlyumptious” is his word. (Though I would have guessed it was from Marry Poppins if I didn’t just see it there).
“rotsome” is the only one I’ve seen that one could conceivably mistake for a mainstream word, even though it does sound odd. “Chortle” was a word coined by Lewis Carroll and that word went mainstream.
“gimble” is another one from L. Carroll meaning “to grimace”. I’m just curious about Roahl Dahl’s words. I can’t think of any used in standard English.
I’ve heard people use Oompa Loompa in the wild - either as an insult to someone of short stature, or in general terms to describe people working invisibly behind the scenes of a project or process.
I think the lack of Dahl-coined words is actually a measure of their success as made-up words; they were written as conspicuously made-up words, and they have remained that way.
My kids used to do ‘whizzpoppers’ but I have not heard it outside the family.
http://www.waxdog.com/jabberwocky/def.html
Gimble - “to make holes like a gimlet”
Did he invent “Stig”? Thanks to Top Gear now a popular word in daily use.
The term has made it into Wiktionary. Make of that what you will; it’s a crowdsourced dictionary written largely by non-professionals, but they do have editorial quality controls that are considerably more sophisticated and consistently applied than, say Urban Dictionary.
I checked the Oxford English Dictionary for references to Dahl. While he is occasionally quoted to illustrate the usage of certain terms, only once does he provide the earliest known quotation. This is for a specialized use of the verb “stop” in racing, meaning “to check (a horse) in order to stay out of the running”. So it’s possible that he coined this use. (If he did, it’s rather disappointing that none of his better-known coinages have made it into the OED.)
Stig is a Scandinavian man’s name.
Thanks Peter Morris. I was mistaken. I was looking at some East Anglia dialect and must have conflated it with L. Carroll’s use of it. The definition on this web site is “to grin or smile”
Seems to me I’ve seen vermicious a couple of times in other stories. Probably more of a reference than a widely accepted word.
Apparently there’s an indie band named Vermicious Knid as well.
Dahl didn’t invent that one. It’s means “wormlike” or “pertaining to worms”, and has been around since at least Victorian times.
Regardless, it is a great word.
STIGs = Secure Technical Implementation Guidelines.
The bane of my existence, and the source of my paychecks…
By coincidence, this week I learned this word, which I liked: Anthelmintic - Wikipedia
My puppy had Giardia, like a million other dogs (and people) constantly do. Never knew that’s what the doctor orders.
ETA: most of us have come across, when formally introduced, to Our Appendix, which is vermiform. (Wasn’t there a HS film “I Am Bob’s Appendix?”, or is that just priverbial?)
I’ve heard “gobstopper” used as a generic term for a jawbreaker, kind of like “Band-Aid” as a generic term for “adhesive bandage,” or “Kleenex” for “disposable paper handkerchief.” That probably required the intervention of the “Wonka” brand candy making a small jawbreaker called a gobstopper, though. The word has a legitimate etymology, though-- sort of “stopping you from gobbling,” by being a candy that necessarily must be eaten slowly, which is certainly what a jawbreaker is.
ETA: so it’s a noun and not an adjective. Still interesting.
Now that I think about it, I did once hear a person described as “Getting Oopma Loompaed,” to mean getting eliminated from a competition in an embarrassing way-- kind of the opposite of “unceremoniously.” Some reality shows do this apparently.
I’d always assumed it was some very sideways reference to the children’s book “Stig of the Dump”, certainly if you said “Stig” in the UK before Top Gear that is what most people would think of.