作家发明的常用词

凡路

Its pretty rare to be able to trace1 a words invention back to a single person. Most words develop slowly， over time， and are shaped by entire cultures， not individual people.

And then there are the words that were invented by authors. This occasionally happens when an author combines root words from different languages， old names， and/or nonsense syllables to create character names， place names， or names for concepts that have never been imagined before， and slowly those names creep into common usage.2

Here are six common English words that were first invented by authors.

1. Chortle， Lewis Carroll3

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock？ 4

Come to my arms， my beamish5 boy！

O frabjous day！ Callooh！ Callay！”6

He chortled in his joy.

Carrolls Jabberwocky—which first appeared as a poem read by Alice in Through the Looking-Glass， and What Alice Found There， the sequel to Alices Adventures in Wonderland—is chock-full of7 nonsense words， but only one of them made the jump to the English language. Perhaps thats because “chortled”suggests both“chuckled”and “snorted，”making it easy to intuit the meaning in a way you cant quite do with“brillig.”8

2. Pandemonium， John Milton9

Mean while the winged Haralds by command

Of Sovran power， with awful Ceremony

And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim

A solemn Councel forthwith to be held

At Pand?monium， the high Capital

Of Satan and his Peers…10

In Paradise Lost， Milton named the capital city of Hell Pand?monium， but he didnt invent the name out of thin air11. He used classical roots： the Greek “pan，”meaning all，and the Latin “demonium，” or demons12. Together they mean “the place with all the demons.” Today， of course， pandemonium describes the chaos that results when all hell breaks loose.13

3. Malapropism， Richard Brinsley Sheridan14

Ill take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop， when she shall treat me， as long as she chooses， with her select words so ingeniously15 misapplied， without being mispronounced.

Mrs. Malaprop is a character in the 18th-century Irish play The Rivals who delights in elaborate， polysyllabic words and constantly misuses them.16 “He is the very pineapple17 of politeness！” she cries. “His physiognomy is so grammatical！”18 Her name comes from the French phrase mal à propos，which means inopportunely19 or inappropriately， but in English a “malapropism” is now specifically a misused word， in honor of Mrs. Malaprop.

4. Robot， Karel ?apek20

What young Rossum invented was a worker with the least needs possible. He had to make him simpler. He threw out everything that wasnt of direct use in his work， thats to say， he threw out the man and put in the robot. Miss Glory， robots are not people. They are mechanically 21 much better than we are， they have an amazing ability to understand things， but they dont have a soul.

“Robot”comes from the Czech word “robotnik，” meaning serf or slave.22 In R.U.R. （Rossums Universal Robots），robots are artificial people designed to perform hard labor， until （spoiler alert！） they rise up in rebellion against the human race.23 ?apeks robots are not robots in the modern sense of the term—their artificial skin and organs make them physically indistinguishable from regular humans， closer to cyborgs than to modern robots—but R.U.R.s translation into English in 1923 marks the moment when the fantasy of what had previously been called automatons became the fantasy of the robot.24

5. Serendipity， Horace Walpole25

This discovery， indeed， is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity， a very expressive word， which， as I have nothing better to tell you， I shall endeavour to explain to you： you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition.26 I once read a silly fairy tale， called The Three Princes of Serendip： as their Highnesses travelled， they were always making discoveries， by accidents and sagacity， of things which they were not in quest of： for instance， one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately， because the grass was eaten only on the left side， where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand Serendipity？ 27

This one comes not from a book but from a letter. Horace Walpole， the author of the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto， wrote to a friend in 1754 with news of the exciting new word hed invented， drawing from a fairy tale set in Serendip， an old name for Sri Lanka.28 Serendipity， the faculty29 or instance of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident， is often considered one of the most difficult-to-translate words in the English language.

6. Utopia， Thomas More30

The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates31 from them Neighbors； but those to whom they have been of more particular service， Friends； and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues or breaking them， they never enter into an alliance with any state.32 They think leagues are useless things， and believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit men together， the faith of promises will have no great effect； and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round about them， who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties.33

Utopia is a Latin word that means “nowhere，” so when Thomas More used it as the name of his imagined ideal nation in 1516， he was emphasizing its unreality. Now we use the word as a way of describing imagined perfect civilizations， but utopias are nowhere near as popular as their antonyms： dystopias， which are literally “imagined bad places.”34

Bonus35： Why Shakespeare isnt on this list

Its a common myth that Shakespeare invented thousands of commonly used English words， including classics like “swagger，” “eyeball，” “puke，” and “dawn.”36 Unfortunately， this is almost definitely false. When the first editions of the Oxford English Dictionary were compiled， lexicographers had to painstakingly scan individual texts by hand to find the first recorded usage of every word in the dictionary.37 They ended up listing Shakespeare as the first person to write down 3，200 words.

But today， with the advent of computerized word searching， Shakespeare has been dethroned from almost all of his etymological entries.38 （The same thing happened on a smaller scale to Charles Dickens， who it seems did not in fact coin the words “boredom” and “butterfingers.”39）

It turns out that Shakespeares genius was not in coining new words—it was in hearing new words and writing them down before they became widespread， and in wringing new meaning out of old， worn-out words：40 turning “elbow”into a verb and “where”into a noun. He didnt invent the words， but he knew how to use them better than anyone.

据说莎翁一生创造出了上千个新词，在我们每天常用的词中，有很多就来自这位大文豪。其实，除了莎翁之外，还有很多作家在其作品中一展想象力创造出了不少新词，而这些词就在不断地传播演变中逐渐成为了常用词。

1. trace： 追究，追溯（来源）。

2. 这种情况时有发生，作者将不同语言的根词、旧称以及/或者无意义音节相组合，创造出人名、地名或之前从未想象过的概念名称，然后慢慢地，这些名称就潜入了普通用语中。nonsense： 无意义的，荒谬的；syllable： 音节；creep into： 逐渐侵入（或融进）。

3. chortle： 哈哈地笑，咯咯地笑；Lewis Carroll： 刘易斯·卡罗尔（1832—1898），英国著名作家、数学家，代表作为《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》（Alices Adventures in Wonderland）。

4. hast thou： 古英语，相当于have you；slay： 杀害；Jabberwock： 最早出现在《爱丽丝镜中世界奇遇记》（Through the Looking-Glass， and What Alice Found There）的名为Jabberwocky的诗中，是一条恶龙的名字，译为“炸脖龙”或“伽卜沃奇”。后用jabberwocky来表示“无聊、无意义的话”。

5. beamish： 得意的。

6. frabjous： 壮丽的，辉煌的；callooh， callay： 好，好哇（表示激动与高兴的呼喊声）。

7. chock-full of： 充满……。

8. chuckle： 轻声笑；snort： 发出哼声（此处两个词为配合chortled均使用了过去式）；intuit： 凭直觉得知；brillig： 是刘易斯·卡罗尔在Jabberwocky一诗中创造的词，一般指“下午四点钟，开始准备晚餐的时间”。

9. pandemonium：（尤指因人群愤怒或激动而引起的）大混乱，嘈杂；John Milton： 约翰·弥尔顿（1608—1674），英国文学史上最伟大的诗人之一，代表作为《失乐园》（Paradise Lost）。

10. 那时长着翅膀的天使们，在元首的命令下，用威严的仪式和号筒的声响，向全体官兵传达消息，宣布在元首撒旦和大天使们的最高首府，“万魔殿”开一个严肃的会议……（朱维之译版）。sovran： 君主，最高统治者；trumpet： 喇叭，小号；proclaim： 宣布，声明；solemn： 严肃的，郑重的；Councel： 指council，会议； forthwith： 立刻； Satan： 撒旦； peer： 同地位的人。

11. out of thin air： 无中生有地，凭空地。

12. demon： 魔鬼，恶魔。

13. chaos： 混乱，无序；all hell breaks loose： 灾难降临，倒霉透顶。

14. malapropism：（荒唐可笑的）用词错误；Richard Brinsley Sheridan： 理查德·布林斯利·谢里丹（1751—1816），英国杰出的社会风俗喜剧作家，代表作为《对手》（The Rivals）。

15. ingeniously： 别出心裁地。

16. delight in： 以……为乐；elaborate： 精心制作的；polysyllabic： 多音节的。

17. pineapple： 此处指对pinnacle的误用， pineapple意为“菠萝”，pinnacle意为“顶峰，巅峰”。

18. physiognomy： 此处指对phraseology的误用，physiognomy意为“外貌，面相”，phraseology意为“措辞，用词”； grammatical： 符合语法的。

19. inopportunely： 不合时宜地。

20. Karel ?apek： 卡雷尔·恰佩克（1890—1938），捷克著名的剧作家和科幻文学家、童话寓言家，代表作有科幻小说《鲵鱼之乱》（War with the Newts）以及科幻戏剧《罗素姆万能机器人》[R.U.R. （Rossums Universal Robots）]。

21. mechanically： 机械地。

22. Czech： 捷克；serf： 农奴。

23. spoiler alert： 剧透警告；rise up： 起义，反抗；rebellion： 反抗。

24. 恰佩克的robots并不是现代意义上的机器人——他们的人造皮肤和器官使他们看起来与常人并无差异，他们更接近电子人，而不是现代的机器人——但是1923年《罗素姆万能机器人》被翻译成英文版标志着人们以前对于自动操作机器的幻想转变成了对机器人的幻想。artificial： 人工的，人造的；indistinguishable： 难以分辨的，无法区分的；cyborg： 电子人，半机械人；automaton： 自动操作装置。

25. serendipity： 意外发现有趣（或有用）之物；Horace Walpole： 霍勒斯·沃波尔（1717—1797），英国作家，代表作有哥特式小说《奥特兰托城堡》（The Castle of Otranto），他一生写了大约4，000封信，其中一些被认为是英语语言中最杰出的文字。

26. endeavour to do sth.： 努力去做某事；derivation： 起源，词源。

27. Highness： 陛下，殿下；sagacity： 聪慧，精明；in quest of： 探寻，寻求；mule： 骡子。

28. gothic： 哥特式的；Sri Lanka： 斯里兰卡。

29. faculty： 天赋，能力。

30. utopia： 乌托邦；Thomas More： 托马斯·莫尔（1478—1535），欧洲早期空想社会主义学说的创始人，才华横溢的人文主义学者和阅历丰富的政治家，以其名著《乌托邦》而名垂史册。

31. magistrate： 地方法官。

32. perpetually： 无休止地，长期地；alliance： 结盟，同盟。

33. 他们认为结盟毫无用处，并坚信如果人性共同纽带不能将人类连接在一起，那么信仰承诺也不会有多大作用。当他们看到周遭那些没有严格遵守联盟与条约的国家时，便对这一观点更加坚信不疑了。knit：（使）结合在一起；observer： 遵守者；treaty： 条约。

34. civilization： 文明社会，文明国家；nowhere near： 远不及；antonym： 反义词；dystopia： 反乌托邦，指充满丑恶与不幸之地。

35. bonus： 额外得到的东西，意外的好处。

36. myth： 荒诞传说，无根据之观念；swagger： 昂首阔步，吹牛；puke： 呕吐；dawn： 黎明。

37. 在编纂第一版《牛津英语词典》时，词典编纂者不得不煞费苦心地亲手翻阅每个文本，以找到词典中每个词最初的记录来源。edition： 版本，版次；compile： 汇编，编纂；lexicographer： 词典编纂者；painstakingly： 仔细地，煞费苦心地；scan： 细看。

38. with the advent of： 随着……的出现； computerized： 用计算机完成的；dethrone： 使失去重要地位；etymological： 词源；entry： 词条。

39. scale： 程度，规模；coin： 编造，杜撰（新词语）； butterfingers： 拿不稳东西的人。

40. wring sth. out of： 费力地从……中取得某物；worn-out： 旧的。