# Words coined by famous people **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389 "2013-05-15T10:41:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/41 "2013-05-16T15:51:13Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > Malaprop comes from a name of a character in a Charles Dickens story. Almost - malaprop comes from the character Madam Malaprop, but it’s from Sheridan’s play “The Rivals.” ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/42 "2013-05-16T15:58:42Z")
Some medical examples: Freud: psychoanalysis Ehrlich: chemotherapy Virchow: leukemia Fleming: penicillin Jenner: vaccine Jung: synchronicity ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/43 "2013-05-16T16:41:40Z")
“Lilliputian,” from Swift. Also from _Gulliver’s Travels_, “yahoo” for a crude, brutish person. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/44 "2013-05-16T18:41:44Z")
> [@Ignotus](#): > > [T]he modern meaning (mechanic worker) must be credited to the Capeks. Actually, in the context of the story, Capek’s robots were artificial humans - flesh and bone. The use of the term for truly mechanical workers seems to have taken hold spontaneously. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/45 "2013-05-16T18:49:03Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > I believe that Jimmy Carter may have had difficulties with pronouncing nuclear, as well. No. It was Lyndon Johnson who was also mocked for that. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/46 "2013-05-16T19:36:40Z")
Trickeration - Don King ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/47 "2013-05-16T21:11:57Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I knew about him coining **physicist** , but his name didn’t mean anything to me. So I didn’t consider him to be famous. So “famous” is to be understood relative to your ignorance. Noted. Whewell was manifestly famous and influential enough in his time to have got _several_ new words into the language, where they are now in wide general use. Nobodies don’t do that. > [@dtilque](#): > > Ok, but adding established English suffixes and prefixes to established English words to make fairly obvious derivations is not exactly a major linguistic accomplishment. This also applies to Asimov coining robotics. Verbing nouns falls into the same category (Jefferson/neologize). But the verb **to visualize** (like its derivatives, such as **visualization** )\* is not the mere verbing of an adjective by adding a suffix. It does not mean “to make visual” as the standard suffixing rule might lead you to expect, but “to visually imagine”. (At least, that is what it meant when Coleridge coined it, and what has continued to most commonly mean for almost two centuries since. Only quite recently, I think, has it _also_ begun to be used to mean “make [some sort of information] visual”, or “present information that is not inherently visual in visual form”.) So yes, I think **to visualize** counts as a true coinage by Coleridge, by contrast with the more recent emergent meaning, which may indeed perhaps be written off as the mere result of applying a suffix in the standard way. \*Actually, I do not exactly recall whether Coleridge initially coined the verb form, or the nouning of that verb: **visualization**. Either way, though, it was a new a meaning, and the one derives directly from the other in a way that neither directly derives from **visual**. ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/48 "2013-05-17T01:03:45Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > … **chortle, jabberwocky, galumph** and perhaps others by Lewis Carroll\*\*…\*\* One way of coining a new word is as a _[portmanteau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau)_. Although the word existed to describe a kind of luggage, Lewis Carroll was the first to use it with this meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/49 "2013-05-17T01:25:34Z")
Gosh, ninjaed by a Topologist. Lewis Carroll deliberately made up words in Jabberwocky (among other poems). Few of which have made it into the standard lexicon, but portmanteau is a beautiful repurposing of an old and probably obscure word. I wish _mimsy_ had made it, personally. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/50 "2013-05-17T03:53:48Z")
Neal Stephenson re-coined avatar (as in, an individual’s visual representation & identity in a virtual environment), does that count ? The word already existed in Hinduism of course, but he gave it an entirely new meaning. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/51 "2013-05-17T07:29:01Z")
Tolkien’s orcs Feanor’s Morgoth ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/52 "2013-05-17T14:36:04Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Tolkien’s orcs > Feanor’s Morgoth Actually I believe that originally an Orc was some kind of obscure mythological sea creature, but Tolkien transformed it into the modern meaning. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/53 "2013-05-17T15:07:27Z")
Does “Catch-22” count? ---
**Author:** ![JKilez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@JKilez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKilez)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/54 "2013-05-17T18:08:08Z")
Matt Groening gave us “sacrelicious”. What? It is a perfectly cromulent word. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/55 "2013-05-18T10:46:35Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > So “famous” is to be understood relative to your ignorance. Noted. Well, as far as my posts go. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do otherwise. There’s not a good, objective way to measure famousness. > [@](#): > > But the verb **to visualize** (like its derivatives, such as **visualization** )\* is not the mere verbing of an adjective by adding a suffix. It does not mean “to make visual” as the standard suffixing rule might lead you to expect, but “to visually imagine”. […] > > So yes, I think **to visualize** counts as a true coinage by Coleridge, by contrast with the more recent emergent meaning, which may indeed perhaps be written off as the mere result of applying a suffix in the standard way. OK, you convinced me. > [@](#): > > \*Actually, I do not exactly recall whether Coleridge initially coined the verb form, or the nouning of that verb: **visualization**. Either way, though, it was a new a meaning, and the one derives directly from the other in a way that neither directly derives from **visual**. Checking the dates of first usage from Merriam-Webster, visualize has a date of 1817 and visualization, 1883. The former is during Coleridge’s life, while the latter is long after he died. > [@Northern Piper](#): > > Jefferson may have popularised the use of the word to refer to a 10 cent piece? After further research, I found that Jefferson didn’t propose the use of the word dime for the US coin. It turns out that was done in a report by two other guys: Samuel Osgood and Walter Livingston. (Jefferson called his proposed one-tenth dollar coin either a BIT or a TENTH.) The Osgood-Livingston report was made in 1786 (which is the date M-W gives for the word) with the official legislation being in 1792. BTW, the official name of the coin is dime, not 10-cent piece. That is, the US coin has that official name (look at its reverse, it says ONE DIME); the Canadian coin is officially a 10-cent piece, although everyone calls it a dime anyway. But Jefferson is credited with a number of other coinages. I couldn’t find a complete list.online, however various webpages claim he originated **belittle, lengthily, Anglophobia, electioneering, indecipherable** and **monotonously**. Not all of those are high quality coinages, though. > [@pravnik](#): > > Accoding to this article, Dr. Seuss’s If I Ran The Zoo is the first printed use of the word “nerd” in modern English. My impression is that the concensus among experts is that the Dr Seuss usage is probably coincidence. M-W says gives the Seuss book but qualifies it with a “perhaps”. As far as genocides, lets not debate here what the first one was. Start another thread to do that. It looks like Raphael Lemkin did indeed coin the word, and that’s all that counts here. > [@JKilez](#): > > Matt Groening gave us “sacrelicious”. > > What? It is a perfectly cromulent word. We’ll wait for sacrelicious to become an established English word. However, **cromulent** does seem to be establishing itself, at least among SDMBers. Credit for that word goes to David X. Cohen, a writer on both _The Simpsons_ and _Futurama_. Thanks to everyone for their contributions. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/56 "2013-05-18T13:08:14Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > My impression is that the concensus among experts is that the Dr Seuss usage is probably coincidence. M-W says gives the Seuss book but qualifies it with a “perhaps”. I know, that’s why I hedged by saying “first printed use” instead of “Dr. Seuss invented.” Gimme a break, I came up with four solid ones. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/57 "2013-05-23T13:34:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Hardly. See [Genocides in History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Before_1490), which includes references to the Hebrews killing off the Amalekites and Midianites, the Romans destroying Carthage, killing/enslaving the Carthaginians and sowing the ground with salt, etc. > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > The destruction of the American Indian population is I believe the largest in percentage of population lost in modern times–I think. > > Obviously that’s a different thread. To briefly continue this hijack, a good book for hashing out relative dates and body counts from genocides / mass killings is [The Great Big Book of Horrible Things](http://www.bookofhorriblethings.com/), by statistician Matthew White. And to go back on topic, Mr. White (although arguably not very famous) has coined a few terms for his area of interest. He calls himself an **atrocitologist** , and takes as his topic **multicides**. Recognizing that WWII and WWI were inextricably linked, and that many multicides can be loosely associated with those two events (Mao and Stalin, for example), [he calls that whole great 20th-century extended bloodletting](http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm) “the **hemoclysm**.” ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/58 "2013-05-23T13:49:51Z")
Ben Franklin coined **battery** , attested by the whole internet, and if [this page is to be believed](http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/inventions.htm), these other electrical words too: [ul] [li]charge[/li][li] condensor[/li][li] conductor[/li][li] plus[/li][li] minus[/li][li] positively[/li][li] negatively[/li][li] armature[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Bremidon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@Bremidon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bremidon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/59 "2013-05-23T14:05:41Z")
> [@denquixote](#): > > Does “Catch-22” count? I would accept it. Well-known and used often enough to be misused. > [@dtilque](#): > > The most famous word coiner I know of is Thomas Jefferson, who coined **dime** , although he spelled it “disme” (the S was silent). Isn’t this a case of wording a coin? ---
**Author:** ![TheseGoToEleven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@TheseGoToEleven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheseGoToEleven)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/60 "2013-05-24T17:09:12Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > No. It was Lyndon Johnson who was also mocked for that. According to Wikipedia, “[Nucular](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular)” actually has a rather auspicious pedigree: “U.S. presidents who have used this pronunciation include Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Other users include Homer Simpson, and Professor Marcus du Sautoy. **Edward Teller** , “father” of the American hydrogen bomb, used this particular pronunciation, and this usage is a limited tradition within the American nuclear research establishment.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389.md?page=4)