thagomizer (plural thagomizers) An arrangement of spikes found on the tails of various stegosaurs. 2001, Holtz, Thomas R.; Riley, Terry, The Little Giant Book of Dinosaurs, page 54: Like the thagomizer of the stegosaur, the ankylosaurid tail club was probably used to smash into attackers.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thagomizer
The term thagomizer was coined by Gary Larson in humor, in a 1982 Far Side comic, in which a group of cavemen in a faux-modern lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes on a stegosaur's tail are so named after the late Thag Simmons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer
The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name; the term Thagomizer was coined in 1982 by cartoonist Gary Larson in his comic The Far Side, and thereafter became gradually adopted as an informal term within scientific circles, research, and education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer
The tail arrangement is believed to have been a defensive weapon against predators. The term thagomizer was coined by Gary Larson in a 1982 Far Side comic strip, in which a group of cavemen in a faux-modern lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes were named for the late Thag Simmons.
https://www.wordnik.com/words/thagomizer
Coined by Gary Larson in 1982. His comic strip shows a caveman giving a lecture illustrating this part of a dinosaur, with the caption Now this end is called the thagomizer... after the late Thag Simmons.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thagomizer
Since then it has taken hold as the informal but most widely used name for the spikes on the Stegosaurus’s tail and appears on diagram charts in the Smithsonian Institute, BBC documentaries, and in other museums and bodies of work–firmly cementing it in the lexicon and immortalizing poor Thag Simmons.
https://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/which-cartoonist-coined-the-name-for-stegosaurus-tail-spikes/
Answer: Gary Larson. Gary Larson, the beloved cartoonist behind the quirky single-panel cartoon The Farside, is popular in geeky and scientific circles. So popular in fact that jokes and references from his collections often work their way into scientific lingo and discourse.
https://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/which-cartoonist-coined-the-name-for-stegosaurus-tail-spikes/
One example of this trend comes from a 1982 panel he penned wherein a caveman professor is giving a lecture to his caveman pupils about the dangers of the Stegosaurus’s tail, explaining “Now this end is called the Thagomizer after the late Thag Simmons”.
https://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/which-cartoonist-coined-the-name-for-stegosaurus-tail-spikes/
Thagomizer has since been adopted as an informal anatomical term, and is used by the Smithsonian Institution, the Dinosaur National Monument, the book The Complete Dinosaur and the BBC documentary series Planet Dinosaur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. Coined by Gary Larson in 1982. His comic strip shows a caveman giving a lecture illustrating this part of a dinosaur, with the caption Now this end is called the thagomizer... after the late Thag Simmons. See -ize, -er.
https://www.wordnik.com/words/thagomizer
who coined the term thagomizer?aaaa
Gary Larson coined the term thagomizer. The term Thagomizer was coined by Gary Larson.