The English language is ever-evolving, and in our current era of
instant communication, Twitter, and text-message shorthand, it
just might be evolving more quickly than ever. We’ve always been
fascinated by the way words are invented and take on meaning,
and the way an obscure reference can become ubiquitous in an
extremely short period of time — particularly those obscure
references that come from our favorite manipulators of language,
books. In the interest of pursuing that idea, we decided to take
a look at a few everyday words that originated in literature,
from plays to poems to novels to children’s books. Click through
to see our a few of our favorite literary neologisms, and if you
feel the urge, add to our highly incomplete list with your own
favorites. The words chortle and galumphing were both coined by
Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem “Jabberwocky” from his 1872
sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking
Glass. Though chortle — which means a laugh somewhere between a
chuckle