The Word "Embiggen" Was Added To The Dictionary 22 Years After The Simpsons Made It Up
Business Insider- Merriam-Webster added the word “embiggen” to its pages on Monday, the dictionary giant announced, culminating a 22-year journey to mainstream acceptance for the word that originated on a “Simpsons” episode. The dictionary defines embiggen as “to make bigger or more expansive,” and notes that its usage is “informal” and “humorous.”
The nonsense word was coined for the 1996 “Simpsons” episode “Lisa the Iconoclast.” In one scene, students from Springfield Elementary School learn that their town’s motto is “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.” Teacher Edna Krabappel then remarks, “Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield,” to which fellow teacher Elizabeth Hoover replies with a nonsense word of her own: “I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly cromulent word,” she says. Supposedly, both embiggen and “cromulent” — which didn’t make the cut on Monday — were the result of a dare. According to Simpsons lore, the showrunners challenged the episode’s writers to insert two real-sounding fake words into the script.
Another day, another example of how The Simpsons is the greatest work of modern mankind. Usually we are blogging about an anniversary of a classic episode or another time they predicted the future.
But in this instance, The Simpsons are changing the world. Again. They made up a word out of thin air for shits and giggles more than 20 years ago and Simpsons fans spoke it into existence like they were LaVar Ball. As I write this blog, embiggen has the red squiggly lines underneath it whenever I write it. But soon it will actually be a real word and those red squiggly lines will only appear on the other 20 words I misspelled because I write for Barstool.
I honestly will never understand how a show like The Simpsons could go from so great and quotable and relevant to just operating in the background for the last 15 years. But here we are. My favorite part of this announcement was Kory Stamper explaining why embiggen made the cut over cromulent.
Both coinages instantly became running inside jokes among fans of the show. But it was “embiggen” that became the “stealth lexical champion” of the scene, according to Merriam-Webster lexicographer Kory Stamper.
Stealth Lexical Champion of the scene? Gonna go ahead and say Kory is a bring a book to the bar guy on the very rare occasions he actually leaves the house. Also gonna say Kory got into the word game because his name is spelled in an absolutely diabolical fashion.
I’d also like Kory with a K to explain how Kwyjibo didn’t get the knod over either of those words to be honest. If you mention a made up Simpsons word, I’m thinking Kwyjibo every single time. That’s my Stealth Lexical Champion of The Simpsons.
As for the rest of the words added, there were some other notable additions.
The word headlined a class of 850 new Merriam-Webster additions, including “wordie” (a lover of words), “mansplain” (to explain something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic), and “glamping” (outdoor camping with amenities and comforts not usually used when camping).
Seeing “wordie” in person made my skin crawl because it sounded so douchey. Luckily “mansplain” was next and turned up the douche level to a 10.
And anybody who has ever been on Twitter will enjoy this.
Another term, “dumpster fire” — meaning “an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence” — gained fame when it was named the American Dialect Society’s 2016 Word of the Year.
I don’t know if they have gif technology in book form yet, but you need the flaming dumpster gif next to the dumpster fire definition.
And Merriam-Webster conceded to people like Nate and Lightswitch Lou, even if none of this stuff will make a lick of sense to idiots like me no matter how many times I reread the definition.
Three related technological words also made the cut: “cryptocurrency,” “blockchain,” and “initial coin offering.”