I Pitched “Hangry” for Dictionary Inclusion in 2003 and Was Rejected

At some point within the spring of 2003—earlier than Fb, Instagram, TikTok, and the iPhone, and across the similar time that the primary podcasts got here to be—I used to be listening to one in all my favourite radio exhibits, The Subsequent Huge Factor, which aired on WNYC and was syndicated by Public Radio Worldwide from 2000 to 2005. After they obtained to a section referred to as “What’s Your Phrase?” by which listeners pitched phrases they thought needs to be within the dictionary to the present’s host, Dean Olsher, and lexicographer and Wordnik founder Erin McKean (who on the time was an editor on the New Oxford American Dictionary and Verbatim), I referred to as in with two food-related phrases that I assumed would be certain hits: “breastaurant” and “hangry.”

Historical past would show me proper about one of many phrases, however on the time, Olsher and McKean weren’t offered. I caught up with the 2 of them in Could of 2024—21 years after the section first aired on Could 9, 2003—to get their reflections on my phrases. We mentioned the very gradual after which very fast rise of “hangry,” which has been round since a minimum of the 1910s, however didn’t attain cultural saturation till round 2015 and solely made it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018, however can now be discovered printed on socks, T-shirts, tote baggage, and (after all) in magazines, newspapers, and web sites, with no clarification wanted. Our dialogue of the 2 phrases additionally supplies a captivating (to this specific phrase geek, anyway) look backstage on the usually unpredictable approach some phrases climb into common, dictionary-approved utilization and a few do not.

McKean additionally makes the superb level that print dictionaries have a motive to restrict their lexicon a minimum of partially due to the bodily nature of the product—within the digital age, there is not any want for such limits, and language can evolve far more shortly. Philosophy of language apart, poring by the archives of The Subsequent Huge Factor to look again at previous predictions with the good thing about hindsight was a enjoyable train, which I extremely advocate when you’ve got a while to spare.

Skip to minute 37:55 within the episode “It’s Not Over” on the WNYC web site to take heed to the total Could 9, 2003 “What’s Your Phrase?” section or to 43:25 for simply my bit, or learn on for the transcript of my name, then proceed under for my latest Q&A with McKean and Olsher.

Pitching Hangry: Full 2003 Transcript

Dean: Hello, who’s this?

Megan: That is Megan Steintrager.

Dean: Megan, the place are you calling from?

Megan: I’m truly calling from Yonkers, the place I work, and I reside in New York Metropolis.

Dean: And you’ve got a phrase for us?

Megan: I do. My phrase is “breastaurant.” [Erin and Dean laugh]

Dean: Like Hooters? Would Hooters be a breastaurant?

Megan: Yep, you bought it immediately. And my mom truly got here up with this phrase, which I believe is fairly humorous. She was simply driving by and she or he stated, “Have you ever youngsters ever been to that breastaurant?” We have been all floored.

Dean: Is it spelled “b-r-e-s” or “b-r-e-a-s”?

Megan: I spell it “b-r-e-a-s.” I even have one other phrase if I can pitch that too.

Erin: What’s the opposite one?

Dean: Go for it!

Megan: It type of ties into breastaurant.

Erin: Please do not inform me it’s just like the male chain…

Megan: [Interrupts Erin] No, no, no, no. It is, uh, “hangry.”

Erin: Hangry?

Megan: Hangry.

Erin: Whenever you’re so hungry, you are simply prepared to tear somebody’s head off?

Megan: Precisely! It comes up lots on street journeys, you already know, when you may’t discover wherever to eat.

Dean: You’re getting so hangry…

Megan: Otherwise you’re caught in a gathering that is going by lunch.

Erin: Or that uncomfortable early night time, when it isn’t meal time but, but lunch was so very distant.

Megan: Proper, sure. I had one boyfriend who at all times wished to exit for a drink earlier than dinner and so I’d be, like, secretly having a meal earlier than we went out in order that I did not grow to be hangry.

Dean: I’ve completely accomplished that. I am guessing that Megan’s gonna have a neater time with “breastaurant” than with “hangry,” proper?

Erin: I’m considering that there is already a technique for making phrases that imply anger linked to one thing. We’ve “desk rage,” and “laptop rage,” and “street rage,” and “aircraft rage.”

Megan: [sounding disappointed] Proper. So it’d be “starvation rage.”

Erin: Yeah.

Megan: [sounding defeated and resigned] Yeah.

Dean: Properly hear, Megan, thanks very a lot.

Megan: Thanks.

Dean: Okay.

Megan: All proper.

Dean: Be nicely.

Megan: Bye.

Dean Olsher and Erin McKean Share Their Ideas on Hangry in 2024

As I discussed above, I lately caught up with Olsher and McKean through e-mail to ask them why they have been so certain that “hangry” wouldn’t be the massive success it’s grow to be. They have been nice sports activities about it. Learn on for the small print.

Megan: Might you give a little bit historical past/background of the “What’s Your Phrase?” section you hosted on the Subsequent Huge Factor?

Erin: I went again and checked my e-mail (I am a digital packrat, I preserve all the things) and it appears to be like like I obtained an e-mail from Dean Olsher in January of 2002. At that time I might been working for Oxford College Press for a few yr and a half or so. He wished to do “one thing language associated” for the present, and we had a name and batted round some concepts. The primary section aired in April of 2002, I believe.

Megan: Whenever you heard my pitch of “hangry,” what was it that made you suppose it wouldn’t take off? Might you speculate on why you had the unique response you needed to my pitch?

Erin: I believe I’ll must borrow a well-known reply of Samuel Johnson’s right here and say, “Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.” One of many issues I like about working with phrases is that typically we simply do not know why one phrase succeeds and one other fails, or why a phrase has a second of recognition after which falls from favor.

After I was engaged on conventional dictionaries, our huge constraint was the scale of the printed ebook—so we have been extra in a mode of searching for causes NOT to incorporate a phrase.

Dean: Wow, we actually blew it on this one, did not we? I am stunned that I did not embrace the phrase wholeheartedly, as a result of it makes me consider a humorous reminiscence from school. Throughout my junior yr in France, I led an English dialog group on the American Library on the town. At some point a man stated: “After I get up within the morning, I’m very indignant, and I hit lots.” The remainder of us within the room exchanged anxious glances till we realized that he was hungry and ate lots.

Megan: What’s it about “hangry” that you just suppose has caught on?

Erin: On reflection, I believe I underestimated how enjoyable it’s to say. It lends itself to exaggeration…”I am hangggggggry.”

Megan: In response to my analysis the earliest recognized use of hangry was in 1910. Why do you suppose the phrase didn’t take off sooner, and even once I pitched it, after which turned so ubiquitous?

Erin: It is so exhausting to say—that is completely a phrase that might have been used extra in speech and never made it into print (it’s extremely casual). And the sorts of people that obtained their writing printed have been for a very long time the sort of people that nearly at all times had sufficient to eat, or who weren’t anticipated to be on diets. So maybe they simply did not ever get hangry. The citations within the OED are attention-grabbing in that of the 5 citations; two are about animals, and one is utilizing the phrase for example of contraction; solely two are about folks, and each of these are after 2000.

Megan: What do you consider hangry being added to the OED in 2018?

Erin: I am all for it! I imagine each phrase deserves a spot within the dictionary—the dictionary I work on now, Wordnik, has included ‘hangry’ since a minimum of Sept 2015, based on the Wayback Machine.

Megan: Are there different meals phrases you may keep in mind that you referred to as or didn’t name over time?

Erin: None spring instantly to thoughts…

Dean: Properly, this might solely be a meals phrase for zombies, however Erin as soon as assigned some arcane phrases to John Linnell to work right into a They Would possibly Be Giants music. That is how he ended up writing “Contrecoup,” which describes a sort of mind harm.

Megan: Any ideas on the subsequent hangry? I.e. what are some meals phrases which might be effervescent below the floor now and would possibly take off in 10 or 20 years?

Erin: I saved a quotation for “nutritionism” the opposite day, that means “the discount of meals to its macro- and micro-nutritional elements” (from the at all times attention-grabbing “Second Breakfast” publication). I am additionally seeing lots of references to “meals noise” (fixed intrusive ideas about meals), particularly since semaglutide medication appear to show them off.

Korean meals phrases appear to be getting extra well-liked, from dishes similar to tteokbokki, components like gochujang, and practices like mukbang movies.

I am additionally amused by “batchie” or “batch brew”—espresso brewed in giant batches, versus single-serving pour-overs. Every thing outdated is new once more…

Megan: Now for the opposite phrase I pitched: What do you suppose right this moment about “breastaurant?” Why hasn’t it taken off?

Erin: I believe as a result of it largely refers to 1 well-known chain, so…folks simply would use the title of the chain. 🙂  We do embrace it in Wordnik, although, and have since 2015, with plenty of citations. So I would not name it a failure, it is simply not a high-frequency phrase.

Dean: To be trustworthy, whereas breastaurant did really feel like a contender 20+ years in the past, I believe we will have to attend for the Zeitgeist to come back round once more on that one.

Anything you’d like Severe Eats readers to find out about your work right this moment?

Erin: I by no means actually preferred being the bouncer on the dictionary nightclub…I need to let all of the phrases in to bop! As of late I run Wordnik, a nonprofit, on-line English dictionary the place our objective is to incorporate all the phrases of English—together with the 52% of English phrases that are not included in conventional dictionaries. One of many methods folks can assist the undertaking is by adopting their favourite phrases—I checked and “hangry” and “breastaurant” are each accessible. 🙂

Dean: These days I am a music therapist. And I lately launched my debut album! Letters of Transit is at deanolsher.bandcamp.com.