Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Yahoo
“Yahoo” is not just a search engine or cry of victory, it is a crude or brutish person. The term comes from the name of a savage race found in “Gulliver’s Travels” who were unenlightened by human reason.
Jonathan Swift’s best seller from 1726 tells the story of Lemuel Gulliver, who traveled through fictional countries and encountered different races of people. In addition to the Yahoos, Gulliver also encounters Lilliputians, a race of people six inches tall who live in Lilliput, and Brobdingnagians, gigantic people who inhabit the country of Brobdingnag. Both terms have entered the English language to mean “tiny” and “huge” respectively. “Gulliver’s Travels,” Swift’s most universal satire, remains relevant today.
Authors have often invented words that enter the English language as well as some words that never make it. Shakespeare and Dickens are two of the most prolific inventers of words. Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in Wonderland,” created a fair share of whimsical words, like mismsy, slithy and frumious, that never made it into common usage. These are known as “nonce words.” Carroll also created “chortle,” a combination of chuckle and snort, and “galumph,” combining gallop and triumph, which did become recognized words. Another of his words, “frabjous,” is a word meaning fabulous and joyous. Although it’s a valid Scrabble word, it’s a frabjous word that is rarely used.
Thomas More in 1516 used the Latin word “utopia,” meaning “nowhere,” to describe an ideal imaginary nation. Today it means a state of perfection. Horace Walpole invented the word “serendipity” to describe a happy accident. It came from a fairy tale set in Serendib, the ancient name for Sri Lanka. Milton named the capital city of hell Pandæmonium in Paradise Lost. It came from the Greek “pan,” meaning all, and the Latin “demonium,” meaning demons. It means “the place with all demons.” Today pandemonium means wild noisy chaos. Pandemonium literally is when all hell breaks loose.
