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Book reveals how Roosevelt coined 'cheerleader' and Lincoln is credited with 'cool'
Without former President Warren G. Harding, there would likely be no “Founding Fathers” — the men who shaped the Constitution might still be called the “Framers.”
And if not for former President John Adams writing it in his diary in 1763, “caucus” might not have been popularized and used throughout history.
Even the word “cheerleader” has presidential origins — ex-President Franklin D. Roosevelt was apparently the first to use it, saying, in 1903, “I was one of the three cheer leaders in the Brown game.”
A number of thought-provoking, silly and oft-uttered words and phrases invented or made famous by presidents is cataloged in the just-released book, Words From the White House: Words and Phrases Coined or Popularized by America's Presidents, by Paul Dickson. The language pro, who has written several word books and dictionaries, says he was inspired to write his latest work after discovering some of the fascinating stories behind common words and terms.
Harding’s “Founding Fathers,” which the then-White House hopeful began uttering constantly while on the campaign trail in 1920, really did it for Dickson: “Most people assumed, like I did, that that term was around from the time of the Founding Fathers. But in all those intervening years, they were the Framers ... Harding’s not our most glorious president, but he has a certain way with words. He’s also the guy who came up with ‘normalcy’ as a term for returning to normality.”
But Harding’s phrase wasn’t Dickson’s most surprising discovery — that one belongs to the nation’s 16th president. “Finding that Abraham Lincoln was the first one to use the word ‘cool,’ meaning, ‘Hey, that’s cool! That’s really something.’ ‘Cool’ meaning ‘wow,’ ” Dickson enthusiastically exclaims.
“One of the words Jefferson created was ‘belittle.’ A lot of the early patriots, they created words almost to thumb their noses at the British; they were acts of defiance,” explains Dickson.
“The Americans, led by people like Noah Webster and others, were of the opinion that America would create its own language. Jefferson actually takes a position that it’s proper to neologize, that we’re supposed to make up new words.”
Dickson, who has coined two terms of his own (those would be “word word” and “demonym,” in case you're wondering), says of his book, “There’s nothing more fascinating than to realize that our presidents in particular helped to create a language that’s really an American language. We’ve created our own sort of way of marking the territory and marking who we are.”
Dickson will be signing and discussing Words From the White House on Jan. 15 at the National Press Club. He’ll also be doing Q-and-A and signing events on Jan. 19 at the Politics and Prose bookstore and on Feb. 12 at the Library of Congress.
