Sunday, May 12, 2019

Word of the Week 05/12/19: Cromulent

From Wiktionary:
"Lisa the Iconoclast" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 18, 1996. The episode features two neologisms, embiggen and cromulent, which were intended to sound like real words but are in fact completely fabricated (although it was later discovered that C. A. Ward had used "embiggen" in 1884). Embiggen, coined by Dan Greaney, has since been used in several scientific publications, while cromulent, coined by David X. Cohen, appeared in Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon.

The showrunners asked the writers if they could come up with two words which sounded like real words, and these were what they came up with. The Springfield town motto is "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." Schoolteacher Edna Krabappel comments that she had never heard the word embiggen until she moved to Springfield. Ms. Hoover, another teacher, replies, "I don't know why; it’s a perfectly cromulent word." Later in the episode, while talking about Homer's audition for the role of town crier, Principal Skinner states, "He's embiggened that role with his cromulent performance."

The meaning of cromulent is inferred only from its usage, which indicates that it is a positive attribute. Dictionary.com defines it as meaning fine or acceptable. Ben Macintyre has written that it means "valid or acceptable".

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