Frankenfood

[Gerald Cohen]

D. Ezra Johnson wrote (12 July 1999):

>The term "Frankenfood" was coined by Paul Lewis, who is a professor of
>English at Boston College (and a friend of my family).
>
    I've followed the responses to Mr. Johnson's July 12 e-mail, and it
seems now that one minor task remains to be done:  It would be helpful to
have a statement directly from Paul Lewis clarifying just  when and how he
coined the term "Frankenfood."  Also: are there any details of his coining
the term that would be of any interest but have thus far escaped mention in
any publication?  If so, would he please write them down so  we may have
his authoritative statment about what happened.

    Since  Paul Lewis is a friend of  Ezra Johnson's family, might it be
most appropriate if Mr. Johnson made the request to Mr. Lewis to provide
the first-person statement about what happened?  If Mr. Johnson could
elicit the statement from Paul Lewis, this would be a valuable contrbution
to the study of Americanisms.  Perhaps Mr. Johnson might also share his
reply with the ads-l subscribers.

   So, Mr. Johnson, could you help us out on this?

----Gerald Cohen



gcohen at umr.edu