Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers (3 page)

ALOGOTRANSIPHOBIA.
Fear of being caught on public transportation with nothing to read. Created in 1992 by novelist
George V. Higgins
(1939–1999), Martin F. Nolan, then editorial page editor of the
Boston Globe,
and Irish-born saloonkeeper Thomas Costello who had first “perceived a lacuna in our lexicon” regarding the problem. The three collaborated on the word, which was created from a combination of Greek and Latin. The Greek word
logos
was thought to be more mellifluous than the Latin
verbum
, and it also more specifically means a written rather than a spoken word. A full account of the creation of this term appears in the
Boston Globe
of September 14, 1972.

ALTRUISM.
A theory of conduct that regards the good of others as the ultimate moral action. The term (French
altruisme,
derived from Latin
alter,
“other”) was coined in the nineteenth century by French philosopher and writer
Auguste Comte
(1798–1857) and introduced into English usage by way of an October 1852 article by George Henry Lewes, published in the
Westminster Review
. Comte was the founder of positivism, a philosophical and political movement that enjoyed a wide diffusion in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, novelist Ayn Rand’s decision (made in 1942, while completing
The Fountainhead
) to use
altruism
as her primary term for the moral tendencies that she found contemptible was occasioned by an encounter with Comte’s ideas. Comte also gets credit for coining the term
sociology
when he divided all science into five great branches—astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, physiology, and sociology.
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AMBIVALENCY.
The paradox in the human psyche that allows for the coexistence of contradictory feelings such as hate and love. Term created by
Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939), who borrowed it from the vocabulary of chemistry. The word was so new,  indeed, that the 1930 edition of
Webster’s New International Dictionary
lists it among New Words, at the front of that edition where it is defined: “
ambivalency
(Latin,
ambo,
‘both,’ and valency, or
valence)
: The quality or fact of being ambivalent specifically, in psychology, ‘the presence of contrary feeling tones, associated with the same idea or object.’”
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AMERICAN CENTURY.
Term coined by
Henry Luce
(1898–1967), the publisher of
Time, Life
, and
Fortune
magazines in an editorial in
Life
magazine, to refer to the economic, cultural, and military dominance of the twentieth century.

AMERICANESS.
American author
James Fenimore Cooper
’s
(1789–1851)
failed attempt to create a word for an American woman as distinct from the male American. “Every true American and Americaness was expected to be at his or her post” appears in the 1838 debut of the short-lived term.
¹³

ANCHOVY.
A small fish of the herring family found off the European coasts, especially in the Mediterranean, where it is caught and prepared for export. It is known for its strong salty taste. The word comes from the Spanish
anchova
for small fish. It first appears in English when in
Shakespeare
’s
Henry IV, Part I,
Prince Hal has the servant Pero search the pockets of the drunken Falstaff and finds a bill for various items including “anchaues and sacke after supper.” This is a prime example of a word Shakespeare is said to have coined but that he almost certainly picked up from common usage. Otherwise those attending the play would have been puzzled.
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ANECDOTAGE.
The reminiscence period of old age. American historian, novelist, and film director
Rupert Hughes
(1872–1956) created this and a number of other new words including
dialectophobia
and
dialectophobes,
of the enmity and enemies to the use of dialect, and
viceversation
, a pedantic form for topsy-turvyism. He argued that these terms were “merely whimsical and of no earthly use.”
¹⁴

ANGRY YOUNG MAN/ANGRY YOUNG MEN.
A group of British novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers who emerged in the 1950s and as a group expressed scorn and disaffection with the established social and political order of their country. Their impatience and resentment were especially aroused by what they perceived as the hypocrisy and mediocrity of the upper and middle classes.
The movement was defined by
John Osborne
’s (1929–1994) play
Look Back in Anger,
which debuted in 1956. A press agent for the theater called Osborne “an angry young man.”  The term seems to have had its origin in 1951 with the publication of novelist, poet, journalist, academic friend of T. S. Eliot,
Leslie Paul
’s
(1905–1985)
autobiography, which he called
Angry Young Man
.

ANTHROPOPHAGINIAN.
An adjective formed by
William Shakespeare
from
anthropophagi
(meat eaters, cannibals) for the sake of a formidable sound.

A-NUMBER-1.
First-class, outstanding, first used in print in 1838 by
James Fenimore Cooper
in one of his novels about life at sea,
Homeward Bound.

APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA.
Metaphor used to indicate the inevitability of death. The expression first shows up in a 1933 play by English dramatist and novelist
W. Somerset Maugham
(1874–1965)
in which the servant to a merchant encounters Death in the marketplace at Baghdad and flees to Samarra to escape falling into his grip. Death then says, “I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had appointment with him tonight in Samarra.” The following year American novelist John O’Hara used the phrase to title
Appointment in Samarra
, probably his most famous and important work. Samarra is a real city in Northern Iraq and was the target of a major US assault in March 2006, as part of the War in Iraq, an action that occasioned several editorials in major newspapers to suggest that this was George W. Bush’s appointment in Samarra.

APTRONYM.
American columnist and wit
Franklin P. Adams
(1881–1960), well known by his initials F. P. A., coined this word for a name that sounds like its owner’s occupation; for instance, William Rumhole, who was a London tavern owner. In Noah Jonathan Jacobs’s
Naming-Day in Eden
we are told of a Russian ballerina named Olga Tumbelova.
Gene Weingarten
, a writer for the
Washington Post
, has coined
inaptronym
for a name that is ironic as opposed to appropriate, e.g., the late Cardinal Sin—Jaime Lachica Sin, the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Manila.

ARTFUL DODGER.
A street thief or con artist; but also used as a nickname for someone who avoids work and responsibility. The term is an eponym for the nickname of a character in
Charles Dickens
’s (1812–1870)
Oliver Twist,
whose real name was Jack Dawkins but who was given this name in tribute to his skills as a pickpocket.
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ASPHALT JUNGLE.
Any urban area regarded as a dangerous place where people are engaged in a struggle for survival. Coined by
George Ade
(1866–1944) in one of his “fables in slang” published in 1920: “After the newly arrived Delegate from the Asphalt Jungles had read a Telegram . . . he . . . sauntered back to the Bureau of Information.”  The term was popularized in
The Asphalt Jungle,
a 1949 novel by W. R. Burnett (1899–1982), about a jewel robbery, and in a popular 1950 film of the same title starring Marilyn Monroe.
¹⁶

ASSASSINATION.
The act of murder usually applied to the killing of a prominent person by sudden or secret attack, often for political reasons. The earliest known literary use of the word
assassination
is in
Shakespeare
’s
Macbeth
: “If th’ Assassination Could trammell up the Consequence, and catch With his surcease, Successe.”
¹⁷

AVIATOR.
The pilot of an airplane as distinguished from a balloonist or aeronaut. It first appears in the 1887 translation of French novelist
Jules Verne
’s (1828–1905)
The Clipper of the Clouds
(1887) in which the verb
aviated
also makes its debut. “Mr. Aviator, you who talk so much of the benefits of aviation, have you ever aviated?”
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AW–SHUCKS.
To act bashfully; to say, “Aw, shucks.” American author and journalist
Tom Wolfe
apparently was the first to turn this expression of humility into a verb in the November 1964 issue of
Harper’s Bazaar.
“Up on the terrace . . . the Secretary of the Interior of the United States, is sort of aw-shucksing around.”

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The anchovy may be one of the more literary fish as Charles Dickens wrote approvingly of anchovy paste. In 1856 in
Household Words
in an entry for June 28, he wrote “Anchovy Paste . . . and the whole stock of luxurious helps to appetite” and it appears as a repast several places in his writing including
Little Dorrit
where it is served on toast. Here is one of the simpler recipes for the paste:

8 ounces anchovies packed in oil, drained, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons fresh white bread crumbs

1/2 cup butter

1 pinch ground cinnamon

1 pinch ground ginger

1 pinch ground black pepper

Directions: 1. Using a mortar and pestle, pound the anchovies and butter until they resemble a smooth paste. You could also use a food processor. 2. Stir in the bread crumbs, spices, and pepper and spoon the paste into a large ramekin. Cover and chill before serving.

B

BABBITT.
Charactronym for a conformist American businessman who, in the terms of the time of his creation, has traded his ethics and chivalry for a Buick. From the 1922 novel of the same name by
Sinclair Lewis
(1885–1951), who in 1930 became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Babbitt became synonymous with the smug, narrow-minded, backslapping businessman loathed by the social critics, especially H. L. Mencken, who wrote of him: “As an old professor of babbittry, I welcome him as an almost perfect specimen—a genuine museum piece. Every American city swarms with his brothers . . . He is no worse than most, and no better; he is the average American . . . incarnate, exuberant and exquisite. Study him well and you will know what is the matter with the land we live in.”
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