Slang Word-Coiners

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:51 PM -0500 3/21/02, James A. Landau wrote:
>Perhaps H. L. Mencken, who coined among others "ecdysiast" and a
>portmanteau of "boob" and "bourgeois" that I won't even try to spell.

booboisie (a blend of "boob" and "bourgeoisie", actually)

>...
>It is odd that more television shows have not contributed to
>American English, slang or otherwise, but outside of the above
>science fiction shows, coinages from TV are surprisingly rare.

 From Seinfeld:  "yadda yadda yadda", "master of my domain", "soup
nazi"  (or, more generally, "X nazi").  Probably others.
 From the Simpsons:  "Don't have a cow", "Ay caramba", and many others
(Many of what we're talking about are not slang words or lexical
items as such, but maxims, adages, cliches, and such.)

>The only ones I can think of offhand are a few from "Lone Ranger"
>(itself originally a radio show) such as "what do you mean 'we',
>white man?"

I don't think that (I know it as "What you mean WE...") was actually
FROM the Lone Ranger show, but from a joke involving the two
characters.

>  and some insults ("dingbat", "meathead", etc.) from "Archie Bunker"
>(I can't recall the formal title of that show)

"All in the Family".  And cf. Jackie Gleason from "The Honeymooners":
"One of these days, Alice, pow, right in the kisser".

If we're talking popularizers rather than creators, Saturday Night
Live certainly popularized retro-"not" and no doubt a lot of other
expressions.

I'm sure other listees can come up with many more contributions from
TV shows, especially comedies.  Wasn't there a list of "Laugh-In"isms
on the web somewhere? (Remember "verrry interesting", pronounced in
Arte Johnson's fake German-soldier accent, "sock it to me", "you bet
your bippy", "beautiful downtown Burbank", "Here come de Judge", and
so on.)

"Hill Street Blues" for "Be careful out there".

But again, favorite or popular lines from given shows aren't the same
as slang expressions invented by or known from shows.

larry