Word Buzz Wednesday: nationalist, cannibal morph, sprezzatura

What are you looking at?
Too cool for school.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, the scary edition! In our latest roundup of interesting words: a not-so-simple definition, your newest amphibious band name, a “chalant” nonchalance.

nationalist

“During a rally Monday night in Texas, President Donald Trump used a word he had never before uttered publicly to describe himself: nationalist.”

Doug Criss, “The definition of a nationalist,” CNN, October 23, 2018

While the definitions of nationalist and nationalism at face value may not seem controversial, there’s no denying their incendiary implications. The original definition of a nationalist, says CNN, is an advocate of nationalism, which refers to “the devotion and loyalty to one’s own country.” However, by the first half of the 20th century, it became “associated with the nationalism movements in Europe that helped lead to World War I and World War II,” and is now “often associated with the far-right, racist ideologies of white nationalists.”

But not everyone sees the term that way. A former senior adviser to Brexit leader Nigel Farage told CNN that nationalism “is a philosophy based around either the nation state, what we know colloquially as ‘countries,’ or around another identity factor, which could be religion, ethnicity, geography or even interests,” and that President Trump is “no doubt using the word to outline his belief in a nation of people unified by beliefs, interests and a common history.”

birthright citizenship

“President Donald Trump is trying to follow through on one of his campaign promises by ending birthright citizenship, a 150-year-old law established in the Constitution that grants U.S. citizenship to anybody born on U.S. soil.”

Alan Gomez, “US birthright citizenship explained: What is it, how many people benefit,” USA Today, October 30, 2018

During his presidential campaign, President Trump pitched the idea of abolishing birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, says The New York Times, and is now bringing it up again “days before midterm congressional elections.”

So what exactly is birthright citizenship? It’s the “principle that anybody born on U.S. soil becomes a U.S. citizen,” says USA Today. It “was added to the Constitution in 1868 in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which reads: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,’” and was created “to grant citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War.” Since then it “has become a bedrock of U.S. immigration law that has allowed anybody born in the U.S. to become citizens.”

As for President Trump’s claim that the U.S. is the only country in the world to grant birthright citizenship, it’s untrue: at least 30 other countries grant it, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Finally, for the record, the president can’t undo an amendment with an executive order. Says House Speaker Paul Ryan: “It would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process.”

carnivore morph

“These tadpoles become what’s known as a carnivore morph, ‘a much bigger tadpole’ with ‘much bigger mouthparts,’ says Greg Pauly, curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.”

Liz Langley, “Neither cute nor cuddly: These animal babies are wee monsters,” National Geographic, October 26, 2018

Your newest band name is here. Some tadpoles of the spadefoot toad begin as omnivores, says National Geographic. That is, an animal that eats both plants and meat. However, once it gets a taste of flesh, it becomes a carnivore morph, avoiding plants and sticking to “fairy shrimp, its toad cousins, and sometimes its own species.”

moulage

“It’s called moulage, the art applying mock injuries through makeup, and staff uses the technique year-round.”

Carilion staff practice frightful wounds ahead of Halloween,” WDBJ, October 30, 2018

The original meaning of moulage is “a mold, as of a footprint, made for use in a criminal investigation,” as well as the “making of such a mold or cast, as with plaster of Paris.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the term comes from the French moulage, the act of molding something.

sprezzatura

“The trained observer sees sprezzatura as a sign that the individual has put in the work. The individual has attained such a level of mastery that he is able to conceal his movements and make difficult things look easy.”

Louis Chew, “The Key to the Effortless Cool Known as “‘Sprezzatura”’ Is Hard Work,” Quartzy, October 30, 2018

Sprezzatura, a kind of studied carelessness or nonchalance, seems to have been coined by 16th-century Italian courtier Baldassare Castiglione in his writing, The Book of the Courtier. The term first appeared in English in the 1950s, says the OED, and referred specifically to art: “The quality that the Italian critics called sprezzatura.”

Happy Dictionary Day! Time to Show the Dictionary Love

American_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language_1828
Title page of Noah Webster’s 1828 edition of the American Dictionary of the English Language. Book owned by the California State Library. Photo by Jim Heaphy.

Every October 16 celebrates the birthday of Noah Webster, often called the Father of American Scholarship and Education. As per the Merriam-Webster dictionary (his namesake), he believed the U.S. should have a distinctive language “with its own idiom, pronunciation, and style.” His 1806 publication, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, is considered “the first truly American dictionary.”

You can celebrate Dictionary Day in all sorts of ways. You can visit the Noah Webster House in West Hartford, CT; play Scrabble all day with the game’s recently updated dictionary; or get your dictionary costume ready for Halloween. You can also help Wordnik.

Wordnik, A Brief History

Longtime Wordniks know it all started with a TED talk. In 2017, our fearless founder, Erin McKean, discussed redefining the traditional, paper dictionary. Flash-forward to Leap Day 2008 and Wordnik’s incorporation (and “un-birthday”), and its official launch a little more than a year later.

After amassing thousands of users, tens of thousands of word lists, and millions of words, Wordnik found its true calling by deciding in 2014 to become a not-for-profit. Less than a year later, it launched its Kickstarter campaign with the goal of giving a million missing words their rightful place in the dictionary. Finally, in April of this year, Wordnik officially became a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit.

Gearing up for Giving Tuesday

The holidays are right around the corner, which means Giving Tuesday is less than two months away. Falling on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, it’s the beginning of the charitable season and a time to give back, whether to your family, community, or favorite charity. We hope you consider giving to Wordnik.

Like the TARDIS, Wordnik is a lot bigger on the inside. From the outside, it might look like a simple website, but on the inside are words — lots and lots of words. In fact, more than any other dictionary. And maintaining those words and the data around them (including not just definitions and sample sentences but also related words, images, tweets, and Scrabble score) runs up a lot of server and storage costs. That’s why we’re asking you to help meet our goal of raising $25,000 by the end of 2018.

How You Can Help

While $25,000 might sound like a lot, there are lots of small ways you can help.

Adopt a word. We launched our adopt-a-word program back in 2014, and since then hundreds of words have been welcomed into loving homes.

How does it work? Donate just $25 (that’s less than 50 cents a week) and you can own a word for a whole year. Not only that, you get:

  • Your Twitter handle or website URL linked on the word page
  • A downloadable, printable certificate commemorating your adoption
  • Stickers
  • Your word sent to the front of the line for updated data
  • An “adopter” badge on your Wordnik user page

Plus! From now through the end of the year, you’ll also get two supercute Wordnik notebooks!

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And remember:

  • Your donation is tax-deductible (where allowed by law)
  • You can adopt a word in someone’s name, which makes a great gift (one size fits all!)

There are even a few lifetime word adoptions still available. Join designer and technologist John Maeda (who adopted design), venture capitalist and musician Roger McNamee (who adopted wombat), and philanthropist and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark (who adopted nerd) in adopting your favorite word forever! Email us for details.

Special sponsorships. We also have special sponsorships available—you can sponsor an entire letter of the alphabet, our Word of the Day email (which reaches more than 6,000 word enthusiasts), or Logodaedaly, our word games newsletter (which reaches more than 500 games aficionados). For information about sponsoring any of these, please email us!

Donate any amount. When we announced our official not-for-profit status, we also launched our Donately page. You can make a one-time or recurring donation of any amount. In addition:

  • If you give at least $15, you’ll get fun word-nerdy stickers
  • Now through the end of 2018, if you donate $100 or more, you’ll also get:
    • A word of your very own for FIVE YEARS
    • The Wordnik T-shirt of your choosing!

Chip in five bucks when you get your Wordnik API key. Of course you can get it for free, but if you give $5, you’ll not only help keep Wordnik running, you’ll get your key in 24 hours. (Normally it may take up to seven days.)

Most of All, Thank You!

Last but certainly not least, we wanted to give a big thank you to all those who have already given, whether by adopting (and re-adopting) a word, backing our Kickstarter, donating, or buying our merch. Every penny goes to keeping the lights on at Wordnik, bringing you interesting words, and giving a place for word lovers to share, comment, or make lists to their heart’s content.

What’s Next?

Keep your eyes peeled right here for more updates as we strive toward our goal!

Damon Runyon: Word ‘Moxie’ ‘In Spades’

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A scene from ‘Guys and Dolls.’

While Damon Runyon might be best known for his 1920s, Broadway-focused short stories — two of which were adapted into the musical Guys and Dolls — what we’re celebrating today are the terms he coined or popularized. Take a look at six of them on the writer’s birthday.

go overboard

“We go overboard today. We are washed out. We owe every bookmaker.., and now we are out trying to raise some scratch to pay off.”

Collier’s, September 26, 1931

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Runyon’s is the earliest recorded usage of this idiom meaning to go to extremes. The literal term of overboard refers to being over the side of a ship.

in spades

“I always hear the same thing about every bum on Broadway, male and female, including some I know are bums, in spades, right from taw.”

Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan, October 1929

Since the spade is the highest suit in bridge, it’s fitting that this saying means “to a considerable degree.”

zing

“I felt him fall and I sensed the ‘zing’ of a boob-face Arab’s knife.”

Tents of Trouble, 1911

You can thank Runyon for possibly creating the word for this zingy, high-pitched sound. By 1918, says the OED, zing also meant energy, vigor, or a zest for life.

moxie

“Personally, I always figure Louie a petty-larceny kind of guy, with no more moxie than a canary bird.”

Collier’s, December 20, 1930

Before becoming slang for “the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage”; aggressive energy or initiative; or skill or know-how, moxie was the name of a soft drink (which is apparently still around), which was patented as a “nerve food” around 1885. According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, the name might come from the Algonquian base maski-, meaning “medicine.”

stinkeroo

“The contest..turns out to be something of a disappointment, and, in fact, it is a stinkeroo, because there is little skill and no science whatever in it.”

Collier’s, November 24, 1934

If something isn’t just bad but really bad, it’s not just a stinker but a stinkeroo.

zillion

“I love him a zillion dollars’ worth.”

Runyon a la Carte, 1944

When a million, billion, trillion, or even a quadrillion aren’t enough, you can always use a zillion. If a zillion still isn’t enough, there’s always a gazillion, which, according to the OED, might have been coined by long-time television critic Tom Shales in a December 3, 1978 article for The Washington Post: “Everything is played not to the people in the seats but to the unseen gazillions who will watch the tape played back later that night, when it is teleported into their proverbial bedrooms.”

Word Buzz Wednesday: terminal buzz, zunda, death comet

Zunda mochi
Zunda still in bean form.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your weekly roundup of some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: your new band name (oh wait, too late), an interesting Japanese dessert, and a spacey misnomer.

terminal buzz

“It drives what’s called a terminal buzz: the rapid increase in the high-pitched calls a bat makes as it hones in on its prey.”

Lacy Schley, “Figuring Out How Bats and Dolphins Developed Echolocation,” Discover, September 28, 2018

Terminal buzz (which is also a band name natch) refers to the final sequence of calls a bat makes before “it goes for a kill,” says New Scientist. The calls are rapid-fire due to the “superfast muscles” in the bat’s larynx, and are used in echolocation: the sounds echo, which tells the bat “how far away objects are and what they are.”

shoulder season

“Also big this month are deals on European Vacations, as this is what’s known as ‘shoulder season.’”

What’s the Deal: Best and worst items to buy in October,” ABC Action News, October 1, 2018

Shoulder season refers to the period between peak- and off-season travel. According to travel guru Rick Steves, shoulder season occurs “April through mid-June, and September through October,” and “combines the advantages of both peak- and off-season travel, including decent weather, fewer crowds, and “a local tourist industry still ready to please and entertain.”

Where the term comes from isn’t clear. Perhaps it’s from the idea of the shoulder being between the head (or “peak”) and the rest of the body. If you have any information, let us know in the comments!

dark core

“Psychologists studying the roots of nefarious behavior have identified a group of personality traits linked to one another through what they dub a common ‘dark core.’”

Ben Renner, “Psychologists Identify So-Called ‘Dark Core’ Of Personality,” Study Finds, October 1, 2018

A recent study conducted by Danish and German psychologists discovered the dark core or common link between nine personality traits: psychopathy, sadism, egoism, narcissism, Machiavellianism, spitefulness, psychological entitlement, self-interest, and moral disengagement. The researchers say these behaviors are exhibited when someone puts their “needs and goals above those of their peers, to the point that hurting others can bring about feelings of pleasure.” Called the D-factor, this dark core can be tested and is similar to the idea of the G-factor, a measure of general intelligence.

zunda

Zunda is most popular in the city of Sendai, located in the northern part of the main Japanese island of Honshu.”

Zunda,” Gastro Obscura, September 27, 2018

Zunda is a kind of soybean paste “made by boiling baby soybeans until they become very soft,” says Gastro Obscura, and “seasoned with sugar and salt.” It’s often featured in Japanese sweets like mochi, roll cakes, and taiyaki, a fish-shaped cake.

death comet

“The asteroid looks a lot like a human skull in certain lighting, so much so that it has also been dubbed the ‘death comet.’”

Joshua Espinoza, “Skull-Shaped Asteroid, Known as ‘Death Comet,’ Will Fly Near Earth After Halloween,” Complex, September 28, 2018

The nefarious-sounding death comet is actually an asteroid (officially, asteroid 2015 TB145). What’s the difference? According to Cool Cosmos from CalTech, “asteroids are made up of metals and rocky material, while comets are made up of ice, dust and rocky material.” Another nickname for the death comet is the Great Pumpkin, dubbed by NASA after Linus’s unseen visitor when the heavenly body passed earth back in 2015 on Halloween night.

September Food Word Origins: macadamia nut, Monte Cristo sandwich, cherries jubilee

Cherries Jubilee
Cooking up some cherries jubilee.

It’s the end of the month so you know what that means: a roundup of the most interesting origins of foods celebrated in September. Last month we kicked things off with s’mores, sponge-cake, and chop suey. This time we have five more delicious food words and where they (might) come from.

macadamia nut

“Perhaps the best of these [recent introductions to Hawaii] is the Macadamia Nut, sometimes called the Queensland Nut from its native habitat.”

Mary Dillingham Frear, Our Familiar Island Trees, 1929

The delicious macadamia nut (celebrated each September 4) was named after Scottish chemist and politician, John Macadam. At 28 he set sail from Glasgow to Australia, where he became friends with botanist Ferdinand von Mueller. Mueller was taxed with naming flora “discovered” by European settlers, and chose to name the nut-bearing tree after Macadam.

John Macadam shouldn’t be confused with John Loudon McAdam, the Scottish engineer who invented macadam, or Charles Macintosh, the Scottish chemist who created a method to make garments waterproof, such as his namesake, the mackintosh raincoat.

hot dog

“The ‘hot dog’ was quickly inserted in a gash in a roll, a dash of mustard also splashed on to the ‘dog’ with a piece of flat whittled stick, and the order was fulfilled.”

Paterson Daily Press, December 31, 1892

A hundred and third plus years ago, you’d be lauding sausages served hot every National Hot Dog Day on September 10. That’s what the term hot dog originally referred to (with the popular, yet hopefully untrue, belief that sausage contained dog), says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It was also used as a mass noun. From a September 14, 1884 issue of the Evansville Daily Courier: “Even the innocent ‘wienerworst’ man will be barred from dispensing hot dog on the street corner.”

hot cross bun

“Good Friday comes this Month, the old woman runs With one or two a Penny hot cross Bunns.”

Poor Robin’s Almanack, 1733

Every September 11 honors the hot cross bun, which is  sweet and “marked on top with a cross of frosting, traditionally eaten during Lent.” The 1733 citation above is the earliest recorded, says the OED, and while “hot” is still always included in the name, it’s now usually served cold.

linguini

“When peas are used, rarely is the sauce poured over the linguine or fettuccelle.”

Garibaldi M. Lapolla, Good Food from Italy, 1954

Every September 15, you can fete this long, flat pasta, the name of which comes from the Italian lingua, meaning “tongue.” The earliest recorded usage in English of linguine is 1920, according to the OED. From a U.S. Patent Office publication: “Macaronic Foods, Including Bombolati, Linguini, Foratini, [etc.].” Italian immigrants had been coming to the U.S. since the 1890s, and while immigration tapered off around 1920, says the Library of Congress, by then more than four million Italians had settled in the U.S.

Monte Cristo sandwich

“The Monte Cristo sandwich has always served as a sort of Rosetta Stone in my explorations of this planet.”

Thadius Van Landingham III, “Count the Monte Cristos,” The Stranger, May 11, 2006

Like the eponymous count of Alexandre Dumas’s 19th-century novel, the origins of the Monte Cristo sandwich are shrouded in mystery. According to the Food Timeline, the battered and fried ham and cheese sandwich celebrated every September 17 is probably a variation of the croque monsieur, the term of which first appeared in English in 1915, says the OED. As for the Monte Cristo, Food Timeline says it was most likely “first served in southern California” and was “very popular in the 1950s-1970s.” However, what it has to do with a rich and enigmatic nobleman, your guess is as good as ours.

cherries jubilee

“Thursday, it was Beef Wellington and Cherries Jubilee, and enough Sevruga Caviar to make the QE2 one of the Russian’s largest single customers.”

Rebecca Leung, “Farewell to the Queen,” CBS News, January 23, 2004

Lauded every September 24, this decadent dessert is made up of cherries in a flaming brandy sauce served over vanilla ice cream. It was supposedly created for Queen Victoria’s jubilee celebration, says Food Timeline. However, what isn’t clear is if it was for her golden jubilee in 1887, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne, or her diamond jubilee in 1897, the 60th anniversary.

A jubilee can refer to a specially celebrated anniversary, a season of celebration, or rejoicing itself. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the word comes from the Old French jubileu, “jubilee; anniversary; rejoicing,” which ultimately comes from the Hebrew yobhel, meaning “jubilee” but formerly “a trumpet, ram’s horn,” or literally “ram.” The site goes on to say the original jubilee was a year of emancipation of Hebrew “slaves and restoration of lands, to be celebrated every 50th year,” and “was proclaimed by the sounding of a ram’s horn on the Day of Atonement.”

[Image: “Cherries Jubilee” by something.from.nancy, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Word Buzz Wednesday: cheese tea, Kushner loophole, pickleball

Pickleball-7
Pickleball, anyone?

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your weekly roundup of some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: a cheesy tea, the sleaziest of loopholes, a fun-sounding game with a funny-sounding name.

cheese tea

“As any cheese tea purveyor will tell you, cheese tea tastes better than it sounds.”

Esther Tseng, “Cheese Tea Could Be the New Bubble Tea — If Americans Get Over the Name,” Eater, September 21, 2018

Like many tasty treats, cheese tea originated in Taiwan. According to Eater, around 2010 night market vendors started combining “powdered cheese and salt with whipping cream and milk to form a foamy, tangy layer on the top of a cup of cold tea.” Because sure why not? The cold tea is “usually green or black tea, with or without milk,” and “is sweet, like boba, but has a savory finish.”

faience

Faience is a French ceramic technique that originated in Lyon during the 16th century.”

Madeleine Luckel, “12 of the Best Design Exhibitions to See This Fall,” Vogue, September 18, 2018

Faience is a kind of earthenware “decorated with colorful opaque glazes.” Named for Faenza, Italy, the term originally referred to the earthenware made in that city, says Incollect, before coming to mean a similar product in France.

Kushner loophole

“The bill aims to crack down on what’s known as the ‘Kushner loophole’ — landlords falsely stating in construction permit applications that a building does not contain occupied rent-regulated units.”

Jess Rohan, “Law Would Close ‘Kushner Loophole’ After Developer Is Fined For Fudging Building Applications,” Bedford and Bowery, September 24, 2018

The Kushner loophole is named for POTUS son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose “family real estate company filed dozens of false documents with the city claiming it had no rent-regulated tenants in many of its buildings,” says AP. This “allowed it to avoid strict oversight of construction that critics say was used to drive out low-paying tenants.” The bill introduced by councilman Ritchie Torres “would require the city’s buildings department to check with tax records to validate such claims,” and if any false submission were discovered, “the landlord’s entire portfolio of buildings would be subject to an audit.”

wadi

“Most importantly, ScanMars successfully detected what’s known as a wadi, or dry, seasonal riverbed during the testing in Oman.”

Evan Gough, “Astronauts Could Use the ScanMars Device to Search for Water on Mars,” Universe Today, September 24, 2018

A wadi is a “valley, gully, or streambed in northern Africa and southwest Asia that remains dry except during the rainy season.” The word is Arabic in origin and ultimately comes from wada, meaning “it flowed.”

pickleball

“Throughout North America the sport of pickleball is becoming increasingly popular, and no one knows this better than the Penticton Pickleball Club.”

Jordyn Thomson, “Interest in pickleball growing in Penticton,” Keremeos Review, September 2, 2018

Pickleball might be the most popular sport you’ve never heard of. An amalgam of tennis, badminton, and ping pong, it was invented by a Washington state congressmen and a couple of his friends one summer in the early to mid 1960s. In recent years pickleball has seen a resurgence, even played by the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates. As for the name, while some sources say it was named after the congressman’s dog, this is incorrect. The game came first — perhaps named for the pickle boat, a nickname for “the last boat to finish a race” — then the dog named Pickles.

Five Jazzy Words from F. Scott Fitzgerald

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F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the quintessential authors of the Jazz Age, was born on this day in 1896. While best known for his novels (This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and The Last Tycoon, unfinished and published posthumously), his tumultuous marriage to fellow writer Zelda, and being one-time BFFs with Ernest Hemingway, he also coined or popularized several terms that have entered the lexicon. Today we dive into our five favorites.

daiquiri

“Here’s the old jitney waiter. If you ask me, I want a double Daiquiri.”

This Side of Paradise, 1920

While this cocktail of rum, lime or lemon juice, and sugar is believed to have been invented in 1896 by a U.S. mining engineer in Cuba — according to the Online Etymology Dictionary — Fitzgerald’s use in his first novel is the earliest recorded in English. The word daiquiri comes from Cuban village of the same name.

deb

“Both Tom and Amory had outgrown the passion for dancing with mid-Western or New Jersey debbies at the Club de Vingt.”

This Side of Paradise, 1920

Deb or debbie is a shortening of debutante, “a young woman making a formal debut into society.” The word debutante debuted in English in the early 1800s, and at first also referred to a female performer making her first appearance in public, says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

petting

“On the Triangle trip Amory had come into constant contact with the great current American phenomenon, the ‘petting party.’”

This Side of Paradise, 1920

Petting led to heavy petting 40 years later, according to the OED: “What is called ‘heavy petting’ in which frank exploration of each other’s bodies is permitted.”

wicked

“You two order; Phoebe and I are going to shake a wicked calf.”

This Side of Paradise, 1920

Ron Weasley can thank Fitzgerald for the ironically positive usage of wicked meaning wonderful, splendid, or remarkable. However, it was used in a jocular way to mean mischievous or sly since starting in the 17th century. From Shakespeare’s As You Like It: “That same wicked Bastard of Venus,..that blinde rascally boy.” As for how wicked became a New-England-centric intensifier (wicked smart, for example), check out this post from Merriam-Webster.

T-shirt

“So early in September Amory, provided with ‘six suits summer underwear, six suits winter underwear, one sweater or T shirt, one jersey, one overcoat, winter, etc.,’ set out for New England, land of schools.”

This Side of Paradise, 1920

While Fitzgerald’s is the first known mention of the word T-shirt (thought to be named for its shape), the simple yet iconic garment existed long before, says The New York Times.

Jazzed for more? Check out our posts on the language of the 1920s beyond the “bee’s knees”  as well as 10 terms coined by Ernest Hemingway.