Slang Word-Coiners

[Mark A Mandel]

On Thu, 21 Mar 2002, Laurence Horn wrote:

# From the Simpsons:  "Don't have a cow", "Ay caramba", and many others

Much more common than either of these is "D'ohh!", which imho is well on
its way to full adoption. ISTM that one point in its favor is that it
expresses "Oh, I feel so dumb for making that mistake!" much more
concisely than almost any pre-existing expression. The only competition
is "Duh!", which can also mean "You are so dumb for not having realized
that before!", and in e-conversation (email, newsgroups, chat, etc.)
can't be disambiguated by intonation and facial expression.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large