Ahem - he was IRISH. And since this is the full quote, it wouldn’t take a genius to guess how it was meant to be pronounced . . .
Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he hasn’t got much of a bark
And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.
But O, Wreneagle Almighty, wouldn’t un be a sky of a lark
To see that old buzzard whooping about for uns shirt in the dark
And he hunting round for uns speckled trousers around by Palmerstown Park?
Hohohoho, moulty Mark!
You’re the rummest old rooster ever flopped out of a Noah’s ark
And you think you’re cock of the wark.
Fowls, up! Tristy’s the spry young spark
That’ll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her
Without ever winking the tail of a feather
And that’s how that chap’s going to make his money and mark!
Errr…my solemn word? I swear I’ve held that book in my hand. The bit I read of it was pretty bad. It’s your typical juvenile delinquency story. I recall some sort of Marlon Brando/James Dean type on the cover, on a motercycle.
It’s probably out of print. Billy Idol probably has a copy.
Isaac Asimov coined the phrase “pocket calculator” in his story “The Feeling of Power,” long before the device was created.
Dr. Seuss had “nerd,” but that is more coincidence than real coining.
Horace Walpole coined “serendipity” from a fairy tale “The Three Princes of Serendip.”
“Roorback” – a term meaning “a fictional slander for political purposes” was coined in a fictional political attack by “Baron von Roorback” (a pen name).
“Droid” meaning “robot” was coined by George Lucas, and is in common use. (e.g. from the OED: 2001 Yahoo! Internet Life Oct. 24/4 Not all Americans are ignorant droids who only follow the next big thing.)
Wolfe’s book was a nonfiction account of the real life and highly publicized acid tests of the 1960s. Square America might have been hearing the term in that usage for the first time, but it was nothing Wolfe invented or even popularized.
Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson’s 1964 novel ‘Generation X’ portrays the children who would come of age in the closing years of the 20th century:
“The ultimate responsibility of Generation X is to guide the human race through the final and crucial decades of this explosive century into the enlightenment of the next one.”
Hmmm … I doub’t it. The word 'assassin" derives from the latin phoenetic translation of something along the lines of 'hashashin" (from the Arabic), with the latter term referring to someone who took hashish (and then became almost possessed and without fear - someone who could kill without worry).
Nobody’s mentioned “malapropism” named after Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan’s *The Rivals * .
And maybe not really common, but I love “granfallon”, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s word for a meaningless group. (“Oh, we rode into town on the same bus.” or “I’m from California, too.”) From Cat’s Cradle.
That’s a play, not a book. Books are fiction; plays are strictly factitious. Don’t confuse apples with apples. And yes, I know the difference between a malapropism and a mixed metaphor.
Hmm. I understand there’s some debate over this- the term may have been used for “misuse of long words” before Sheridan, and he merely adapated it into the character’s name. Consider the french “mal a propis” which offers an equally obvious etymology for this practice (although, of course, Sheridan may simply have used some good-sounding French rather than adopting a common expression).
If terms still restricted to sci-fi count, then I nominate the term “wet navy”, used to refer to oceangoing navies as opposed to space navies. I don’t know who used it first, but I’ve seen used by various authors.