Casual Coinage

Some terms go viral due more to enthusiasm on the part of consumers than determination by producers. Repurposed words such as Gen. Ben Butler’s contraband (referring to those who escaped enslavement), Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm, and Clayton Christensen’s disruption were introduced casually, with little anticipation of how popular – and influential – they would become. Containment was just one of 8,000 words in a 1947 article by diplomat George Kennan proposing that the Soviet Union’s expansionist ambitions be contained. Kennan hadn’t meant that word to be his article’s focus. Years later, he recalled choosing it “light-heartedly.” This casually chosen term ended up having an inordinate influence on world affairs, however. In the same sense disruption has had a major impact on management practices, paradigm and paradigm shift on scholarship (and language in general), and contraband on the course of the Civil War.