Bradlee became fed up with Reed’s rantings and wrote him in part: “You have revealed yourself as a miserable, carping, retromingent vigilante and I for one am sick of wasting my time communicating with you.” As Bradlee recalled in his 1996 autobiography, A Good Life: “God knows where I found ‘ retromingent ’ but it was the perfect word for the occasion, describing that subspecies of ants (and other animals) which urinate backwards. His supporters were outraged.” Irvine parlayed the insult into hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions. 1
RETRONYM. A new name for an object or concept to differentiate its original form or version from a more recent form or version. The term was coined by journalist Frank Mankiewicz and was first brought to public attention in a 1980 column by William Safire. More than twenty-five years later Safire wrote that Mankiewicz, who in 1980 was president of National Public Radio, had coined the word in response to the evolution of book formats: “He was especially intrigued by the usage hardcover book , which was originally a plain book until soft cover books came along, which were originally called paperback and now have spawned a version the size of a hardcover but with a soft cover trade-named with the retronym trade paperback.” Other examples include landline telephone, acoustic guitar, whole milk, film camera, World War I and regular coffee.” See also the entry for BACRONYM .
ROBOT. Coinage of Czech writer Karel Č apek ’s (1890–1938) in his 1921 work R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Č apek took the Czech term for “serf labor” and adopted it to the animatrons that we think of today. Isaac Asimov invented the words robotic and robotics after Č apek, in 1941.
ROMEO. A man who embodies the characteristics of Romeo in the play Romeo and Juliet . Although it is commonly assumed that this character was begat in the play by William Shakespeare, the story of Romeo and Juliet originated in European folklore and was developed by a series of writers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. According to the OED: “The first version of the story in which the male lover is called Romeo is the Italian novella Hystoria nouellamente ritrouata di due nobili amanti by Luigi da Porto ( 1486–1529) which was published posthumously in 1530.
Chewing Tobacco package label showing Romeo and Juliet embracing, by an open window, as they are taking leave of each other.
ROOMSCANITIS. An affliction of some partygoers that makes their eyes flit about looking for someone more interesting or less dull than the one they are talking to. Created by John H. Corcoran Jr. , who introduced it in an article in the Washingtonian magazine in 1975.
RUNCIBLE. Word of uncertain meaning that Edward Lear (1812–1888) used to modify such words as hat, cat, goose, and spoon. It is first employed in 1870 in the poem “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” in Poetry for Young People : “They dined on mince and slices of quince, which they ate with a runcible spoon.” In the January 11, 1913, issue of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, William Allen White wrote of the word’s creator: “Lear . . . was a dear, delicious, crotchety, runcible man, to use one of his own words.”
S
SAD SACK. General term for a misfit. From the name for a cartoon character created for Yank magazine by American cartoonist George Baker (1915–1975) in 1942 for a hapless and blundering army private. 1
SALAD DAYS. The term originates in Shakespeare ’s Antony and Cleopatra:
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment.
SANDWICH BOARDS. An advertising sign consisting of two placards fastened together at the top with straps supported on the shoulders of the carrier, or sandwich man. Term created or at least so described in print by Charles Dickens , who described these advertisers as “a piece of human flesh between two slices of paste board.”
SCAREDY-CAT. A timid person; a coward. Introduced in 1933 by US
RETRONYM. A new name for an object or concept to differentiate its original form or version from a more recent form or version. The term was coined by journalist Frank Mankiewicz and was first brought to public attention in a 1980 column by William Safire. More than twenty-five years later Safire wrote that Mankiewicz, who in 1980 was president of National Public Radio, had coined the word in response to the evolution of book formats: “He was especially intrigued by the usage hardcover book , which was originally a plain book until soft cover books came along, which were originally called paperback and now have spawned a version the size of a hardcover but with a soft cover trade-named with the retronym trade paperback.” Other examples include landline telephone, acoustic guitar, whole milk, film camera, World War I and regular coffee.” See also the entry for BACRONYM .
ROBOT. Coinage of Czech writer Karel Č apek ’s (1890–1938) in his 1921 work R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Č apek took the Czech term for “serf labor” and adopted it to the animatrons that we think of today. Isaac Asimov invented the words robotic and robotics after Č apek, in 1941.
ROMEO. A man who embodies the characteristics of Romeo in the play Romeo and Juliet . Although it is commonly assumed that this character was begat in the play by William Shakespeare, the story of Romeo and Juliet originated in European folklore and was developed by a series of writers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. According to the OED: “The first version of the story in which the male lover is called Romeo is the Italian novella Hystoria nouellamente ritrouata di due nobili amanti by Luigi da Porto ( 1486–1529) which was published posthumously in 1530.
Chewing Tobacco package label showing Romeo and Juliet embracing, by an open window, as they are taking leave of each other.
ROOMSCANITIS. An affliction of some partygoers that makes their eyes flit about looking for someone more interesting or less dull than the one they are talking to. Created by John H. Corcoran Jr. , who introduced it in an article in the Washingtonian magazine in 1975.
RUNCIBLE. Word of uncertain meaning that Edward Lear (1812–1888) used to modify such words as hat, cat, goose, and spoon. It is first employed in 1870 in the poem “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” in Poetry for Young People : “They dined on mince and slices of quince, which they ate with a runcible spoon.” In the January 11, 1913, issue of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, William Allen White wrote of the word’s creator: “Lear . . . was a dear, delicious, crotchety, runcible man, to use one of his own words.”
S
SAD SACK. General term for a misfit. From the name for a cartoon character created for Yank magazine by American cartoonist George Baker (1915–1975) in 1942 for a hapless and blundering army private. 1
SALAD DAYS. The term originates in Shakespeare ’s Antony and Cleopatra:
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment.
SANDWICH BOARDS. An advertising sign consisting of two placards fastened together at the top with straps supported on the shoulders of the carrier, or sandwich man. Term created or at least so described in print by Charles Dickens , who described these advertisers as “a piece of human flesh between two slices of paste board.”
SCAREDY-CAT. A timid person; a coward. Introduced in 1933 by US
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