Adventures in Public Speaking

Need a Word? Make One Up!

Invented Words Languages continually invent words for nameless concepts. The Book of Lists gives these examples of invented words subsequently added to the English language.

• Countdown The act of counting backward to zero was coined by German director Fritz Lang for his silent science fiction film The Lady in the Mirror.
• Equal (=) sign English mathematician Robert Recorde (1510?-1558) created the equal sign explaining, "No 2 thynges can be more equalle than 2 parallel straight lines."
• Googol The term meaning a 1 followed by 100 zeroes was coined by American mathematician Edward Kasner (1878-1955). His nephew jokingly suggested the idea.
• Hot dog Sports cartoonist T. A. Dorgan coined the frankfurter's more common name in the early 20th century.
• Moron Dr. Henry Goddard coined this official designation for someone whose I.Q. is below 75 but ranks above an imbecile or an idiot in 1910.
• Pandemonium John Milton (1608-1674), the author of Paradise Lost, created Pandemonium to serve as the name of the capital city of Hell.
• Quiz It may be an apocryphal tale, but according to legend the late 18th century Dublin theatre manager James Daly made up the word and hired a small army of children to write "quiz" in chalk throughout the city. He had made a bet he could coin a word and put it in the language. The next morning everyone had seen the word "quiz", but no one knew what it meant. Thereafter, a quiz became a short test of knowledge.
• Squawk Lewis Carroll combined the words squall and squeak to make a new word meaning a loud harsh cry.

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