multiple, contentious coiners?
Fred Shapiro
fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Thu May 15 17:59:46 UTC 2003
On Thu, 15 May 2003, Erin McKean wrote:
> I thought I had saved some examples of words whose coinage is claimed
> by several (quarrelsome) people, but I haven't been able to find them
> ... any suggestions?
This is not a case of quarrelsomeness, but the word "yuppie" may have been
coined by several people independently. It was used by Mark Schwed in
1983, Alice Kahn in 1983, Bob Greene in 1983, the Los Angeles Times in
1982, Joseph Epstein in 1982, and Marissa Piesman says she heard it in
1979; all these usages may be independent of each other.
Fred Shapiro
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press,
Yale Law School forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list