Question: Richard Dawkins has claimed many times in public speeches, especially in reference to the documentary “Expelled”, that documentary filmmakers use the expression “Lord Privy Seal” in a disparaging manner to describe the amateur’s tendency to illustrate words or sentences spoken by the narrator with a straight picture depicting said concept.

However, a Google search for the term only reveals references to the English nobility title (which the saying is supposedly derived from) and to Richard Dawkins making this claim. Even the [Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Privy_Seal_%28term%29#.22Lord_Privy_Seal.22) refers to Richard Dawkins. One would think that if it’s a well-known expression in the trade, surely some documentary filmmaking fansite, glossary or handbook would define the term, and Google should be able to find such a page which predates Richard Dawkins.

Is this term real, or did Richard Dawkins (or someone he knows) make it up?

Answer: 
No, Richard Dawkins did not invent the term.

"Lord Privy Seal" is a reference to [a parody of the practice](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVlfvdH7qwY&NR=1) performed by David Frost, on The Frost Report in 1966.

Since then, the trope has been known by other terms, such as [B Roll Rebus](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BRollRebus).

Webster's Online Dictionary [acknowledges this usage](http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/lord+privy+seal) and the etymology:

> 
> The term "Lord Privy Seal" (as in "not bad, but it's a bit Lord Privy Seal") is used in the British television industry as shorthand for associating pictures too closely and literally with every element of the accompanying spoken script
> 
> 
> 

Webster's seems to rely on the memoirs of BBC insider, John Sergeant, *[Give me Ten Seconds](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Give-Ten-Seconds-John-Sergeant/dp/0330484907)*, for the usage.
Oddthinking's pointer to David Frost in 1966 shows the use in film making, but the over-literal interpretation of the title of position (in fact a minister without portfolio who had historically looked after the monarch's private seal) was promoted by Edward Heath (Lord Privy Seal 1961-1963), which [he attributed to Ernest Bevin](http://www.portcullis.parliament.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Persons&dsqSearch=Code==%27649%27&dsqCmd=Show.tcl) (Lord Privy Seal 1951), saying he

> 
> was neither a lord, nor a privy nor a seal
> 
> 
> 

This was repeated by the British Ambassador in Washington D.C. and reported in US local newspapers, such as the [Florence Times, Alabama on December 18 1961](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19611218&id=Pv0rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ssYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6166,5955715).