6 ms·
plenty of words and phrases originate from fiction quixotic, scrooge, shangri-la, Uncle Tom, gargantuan, kafkaesque, blurb, milquetoast and words like cybersp
by apical_dendrite 3mo ago
plenty of words and phrases originate from fiction
quixotic, scrooge, shangri-la, Uncle Tom, gargantuan, kafkaesque, blurb, milquetoast
and words like cyberspace were first used in fiction
once real people use them, they stop being fictional words
- krustyburger 3mo agoKafkaesque doesn’t originate directly from fiction like your other examples any more than a word like Dickensian does.
- triceratops 3mo agoWell it does and it doesn't. It wouldn't be a word if Franz Kafka hadn't written any fiction. Same for Dickensian.
- fl4regun 3mo agoThe word was "Brobdingnagian", which apparently means "giant", from the book, Brobdingnag, published in the 1700s. I know all of the words you listed, even if I don't know t he books they came from, on the other hand, I've never heard anyone use "Brobdingnagian" and I've never heard of the book it came from either.
- apical_dendrite 3mo agoI don't know that one, but I do know gargantuan, and pantagruelian, which come from a 17th century novel by Rabelais as well as yahoo and Lilliputian, which come from a 1726 novel by Swift.
- fl4regun 3mo agogargantuan and yahoo are common parlance, people actually use these, in spite of them not knowing their origin. When's the last time you've seen those written down, or spoken, anywhere aside from those nearly half millennia old books? I've never seen those.
- gjm11 3mo ago"Yahoo" and "Lilliputian" come from the same 1726 novel by Swift as "Brobdingnagian".
- cake-rusk 3mo agoStrangely, I knew this one. Once you hear this word it refuses to leave your head.