Quote:
Originally Posted by RStar
milque·toast- a very timid, unassertive, spineless person, esp. one who is easily dominated or intimidated: as in a milquetoast who's afraid to ask for a raise.
Also Caspar Milquetoast.
An indication of the effect on the English language of popular culture is the adoption of names from the comic strips as English words. Casper Milquetoast, created by Harold Webster in 1924, was a timid and retiring man named for a timid food. The first instance of milquetoast as a common noun is found in the mid-1930s. Milquetoast thus joins the ranks of other such words, including sad sack, from a blundering army private invented by George Baker in 1942, and Wimpy, from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip, which became a trade name for a hamburger. If we look to a related form of popular culture, the animated cartoon, we must of course acknowledge Mickey Mouse, which has become a slang term for something that is easy, insignificant, small-time, worthless, or petty.
Sawyer's nicknames aren't very nice......  |
Yeah, he called me peachfuzz. (!?)
Re: names becoming common words, I've always wondered if Jiminy Crickets! was an exclamation, or an appellation, first. Also, malapropism. Named for Mrs. Malaprop, from the play, The Rivals, or was she named from the word?