Words from the White House

A unique collection of words, phrases, and slogans that have helped define American culture.

The Founding Fathers (a term created by Warren G. Harding for his “front porch campaign” of 1920) felt that coining words and creating new uses for old ones was part of their role in creating a new American culture and language, distinct from the proscriptive King’s English. Noah Webster called the creation of such Americanisms “acts of defiance,” along with such radical ideas as universal literacy and public libraries. Ever since, American presidents have enriched our vocabulary with words, phrases, and concepts that we’ve put to general use.

Acclaimed lexicographer Paul Dickson has compiled the first collection of new words and lexical curiosities originating on Pennsylvania Avenue. Organized alphabetically, each entry contains the definition and most include a brief essay placing the word or phrase in its cultural context. From Washington (tin can) and Jefferson (who alone gets credit for some one hundred coinages, including belittle, overdraught, and sanction), to Lincoln (Michigander) and Teddy Roosevelt (bully pulpit), to Ike (domino principle) and Obama (Snowmageddon), they collectively provide an illuminating tour of more than two centuries of our history.

Bloviate . . . lunatic fringe . . . iffy . . . military industrial complex . . . Anglophobia . . .
kitchen cabinet . . . loose cannon . . . ottoman . . . domino principle . . . brinkmanship . . . normalcy

Paul Dickson has written more than a dozen word books and dictionaries, including The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, The Congress Dictionary (with Paul Clancy), A Dictionary of the Space Age, Family Words, and Slang. He was a contributing editor with Merriam-Webster in charge of the Lighter Side of Language series and was an occasional contributor to the late William Safire’s “On Language” column in the New York Times. Dickson has coined two words of his own—“word word” (the lexical double construction heard in the question “Are we talking about an e-book or a book book?”) and “demonym” (the name for a person from a specific locality, e.g., New Yorker or Hoosier). He lives in Garrett Park, Maryland.