Authorisms Quotes

“INFRACANINOPHILE. One who habitually champions the underdog. The creation of American writer Christopher Morley (1890–1957).”
― Paul Dickson, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers

“RESISTENTIALISM. Name for a mock-academic theory to describe “seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects.” In other words, a war is being fought between humans and inanimate objects, and all the little annoyances objects inflict on people throughout the day are battles between the two. The term was coined by British humorist Paul Jennings in a piece titled “Report on Resistentialism,” published in the Spectator in April 1948 and reprinted in the New York Times and elsewhere. The slogan of resistentialism is “Les choses sont contre nous”—”Things are against us.”
― Paul Dickson, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers

“PLENTIETH. Franklin P. Adams’s adjective of indefinite older age, as in: “He is about to celebrate his plentieth birthday.”
― Paul Dickson, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers

“MONDEGREEN. A term for misheard song lyrics, coined by American freelance writer Sylvia Wright (1920–1961) in 1954. It derived from her long-held belief that a song contained the line, “They had slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen.” In fact, the line ended with the words, “and laid him on the green.”
― Paul Dickson, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers

“EUTRAPELIA. Clean mirth, a jest without a jeer, laughter without scorn, wit without malice, a joke without offense to one’s neighbor. A word fashioned from the Greek by Anselm Kroll, a minister from La Crosse, Wisconsin. He tried valiantly to get others to adopt the concept in a crusade that pushed for the dawning of a new day of humor without barbs. “What a lovely world it will be when its clever folk cease to strive to be satirical or sarcastic, and resolve to be eutrapeleous.”
― Paul Dickson, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers

“APTRONYM. American columnist and wit Franklin P. Adams (1881–1960), well known by his initials F. P. A., coined this word for a name that sounds like its owner’s occupation; for instance, William Rumhole, who was a London tavern owner. In Noah Jonathan Jacobs’s Naming-Day in Eden we are told of a Russian ballerina named Olga Tumbelova. Gene Weingarten, a writer for the Washington Post, has coined inaptronym for a name that is ironic as opposed to appropriate, e.g., the late Cardinal Sin—Jaime Lachica Sin, the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Manila.”
― Paul Dickson, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers