Can You Match the Word to the Author Who Created It?

Great writers can assemble words into sentences that sing, flow, and teach. And in some cases, they can invent them. James Joyce (Ulysses) was a profligate coiner of words, including ripripple (“something flowing like water”), pelurious (“furry”), and peloothered (“drunk”).

With apologies to Joyce, his words don’t often enter everyday conversation, but other writers have managed to make major contributions to the English language. See if you can identify which authors invented these well-known words in the quiz below.

Sometimes words can be misattributed to writers. William Shakespeare was thought to have invented thousands of words when the earliest version of the Oxford English Dictionary was compiled, but subsequent research has revealed many of them predated his works. Charles Dickens, once considered the father of butterfingers, had to relinquish that honor. (It had appeared in a magazine the previous year.)

What we know for certain is that James Joyce absolutely conjured the word pornosophical, or “something relating to a brothel.” No one has yet stepped forward to claim otherwise.

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