"coin" = to call; dub; name;

[Wilson Gray]

And people do take it literally. It once was my custom to add, "to
coin a phrase," whenever I'd use the most tired of cliches. One time,
I was chatting with my girl friend (Damn it! That bitch still has my
LP's!), when she burst into laughter, saying, "Wilson, you're not the
first person to say that!"

If I'd known then that I wasn't going to get my records back, I'd have
let her know that I was laughing *at* her and not *with* her. Oh,
well.

-Wilson

On 10/10/06, Grant Barrett <gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
> Subject:      Re: "coin" = to call; dub; name;
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Oct 10, 2006, at 11:28, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > A reporter on Fox News has reminded us this a.m. that Jennifer
> > Wilbanks "was coined 'The Runaway Bride.' "
>
> I've had my eye on this for a while and did a blog entry about it in
> January:
>
> http://www.doubletongued.org/coined
>
> The gist of it is that the new "to coin" means that there's a problem
> with disambiguation, where person A says "He coined the word..."
> meaning, "he said something significant; gave something/one a name;
> or or called someone/thing by a name" but person B thinks they mean
> "He was the first person ever to have used that word or turn of phrase."
>
> In discussing this with others, I've come to believe this
> transformation of meaning is due to the cliche, "to coin a phrase,"
> especially when it, too, is being taken literally.
>
> Grant Barrett
> Double-Tongued Dictionary
> http://www.doubletongued.org/
> editor at doubletongued.org
>
> The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (May 2006, McGraw-Hill)
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071458042/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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