10 Fake Simpsons Words That Belong in the Dictionary

By John Farrier in Everything Else on Feb 9, 2010 at 9:53 pm

In 2001, the Homer Simpson expression “Doh!” was entered into The Oxford English Dictionary. Jeff Wysaski of guyism proposes that ten invented words from The Simpsons should be likewise formally incorporated into the English language. Example:

Embiggen: To make bigger or grow in size; a perfectly cromulent word

This graceful word can be attributed to town founder Jebediah Springfield. As the town motto goes, “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.” The word is used repeatedly throughout the 7th season episode in which all of Springfield comes down with a major case of Jebeditis (another excellent candidate for this list) during the town’s bicentennial celebration. Adding credibility to the word is the fact that it has appeared in numerous scientific publications since the episode aired.

Simpsons fans can’t think of “embiggen” without thinking of the other fake word used to describe it: cromulent. Clearly, this word should be included on this list as well – if it weren’t for the fact that the Webster’s American dictionary added it to their “New Millenium” edition a few years ago. The official definition: fine, acceptable.

Link via Digg | Image: Fox


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  1. Stuart McCracken
    Feb 9th, 2010 at 10:21 pm

    I wonder if they’ll make high school kids watch the Simpsons in their English classes in 400 years.

  2. GailW
    Feb 9th, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    I am embiggened by this blog post.

  3. AMCabral
    Feb 10th, 2010 at 12:23 am

    I’m inordinately pleased that “cromulent” made it into the dictionary. And a little disappointed that the article fails to mention how Flickr yoinked “embiggen” for one of their slideshow options (“Embiggen small images to fill the screen”).

    -T

  4. Skipweasel
    Feb 10th, 2010 at 2:45 am

    New words are good – sometimes.

    I particularly liked Gary Larson’s “thagomizer”, which is starting to see general use.

  5. jawtheshark
    Feb 10th, 2010 at 4:42 am

    “neologism” doesn’t mean “fake word”. It means “new word” and it comes from the Greek “neo”, “new” and “logos”, which means “word”. A quick wikipedia search would have told the article writer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism

    If one write about this stuff one should first know what one writes about. (Not criticising the neatorama post, but the linked article)

  6. Juice
    Feb 10th, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    Whatever happened to Sniglets?

  7. Katey
    Feb 10th, 2010 at 11:23 pm

    No “Smarch”? It’s been years since I’ve seen that episode but it still cracks me up.


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