Prankery

The history of word-coining is rich with cases of neologisms created as part of pranks that went on to become part of our lexicon. The surname of Washington Irving’s faux historian of New York, Diedrich Knickerbocker, inspired a nickname for New Yorkers, and, shortened, to a type of underwear: knickers. Miscegenation was the title of a hoax booklet produced by two Democrats during the 1864 election to falsely portray Abraham Lincoln as an advocate of intermarriage. Maury Maverick’s popular neologism gobbledygook was apparently a prank-coinage based on a slang term for fellatio. In some cases neologisms created as part of a strategic hoax caught on. The name of a military vehicle known as a tank grew out of an elaborate British ruse to conceal its development by calling this vehicle a “water tank.” Publishers of dictionaries sometimes included faux neologisms called mountweazels, or nihilartikels, to smoke out plagiarizers.