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9780802743800

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A compendious, entertaining look at our nation's leaders through words and turns of phrase. -- Kirkus Reviews

Paul Dickson is the most prolific writer I know. While I have met authors who seem to publish a new book every other week (James Patterson and Nora Roberts come to mind), Dickson's books cover such a wide range of subjects and topics that I consider him to be that one true Vesuvius of books. He never stops writing. Dickson has written his share of dictionaries and word books. The latest, Words From the White House, examines a plethora of words, terms and expressions that have emanated from the most exalted office in the land, the presidency of the United States. Some of these expressions are now in common usage. Others have languished and faded into obscurity. The book is written in dictionary form, in alphabetical order. Each entry has an explanation of how a word or term was used during a particular presidency. Dickson writes that using the Oxford English Dictionary and its 'first evidence for word' credits Thomas Jefferson with 110 new words and 382 new senses for older words. Jefferson was adept at creating new ones. It was Jefferson who concocted the impressive word neologize. It means: to coin or use new words or phrases. Here are some words from the White House and the presidents who popularized them: George Washington gave us administration, average and hatchet man. Warren Harding came up with the term founding fathers. Theodore Roosevelt coined many classics including loose cannon, frazzle, pack rat, lunatic fringe, pussyfooter and muckraker. Presidents love a catchy phrase. When William Henry Harrison won the presidency in 1840 he employed the slogan as Maine goes ... so goes the nation. Back then the voters of Maine cast ballots in September, six weeks ahead of time, to get their votes counted before winter came. That same 1840 Harrison campaign engendered the expression keep the ball rolling. Dickson explains that an immense steel-ribbed ball covered in canvas and plastered with this and other slogans was pushed from t

Author Information

Paul Dickson has written some dozen word books and dictionaries, including The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, A Dictionary of the Space Age, and Slang. 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 (as 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). He lives in Garrett Park, Maryland.

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