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

Sooner or later within the spring of 2003—earlier than Fb, Instagram, TikTok, and the iPhone, and across the identical time that the primary podcasts got here to be—I used to be listening to considered one of my favourite radio reveals, The Subsequent Massive Factor, which aired on WNYC and was syndicated by Public Radio Worldwide from 2000 to 2005. After they obtained to a phase known as “What’s Your Phrase?” during which listeners pitched phrases they thought must 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 known as in with two food-related phrases that I believed would make sure 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 phase first aired on Could 9, 2003—to get their reflections on my phrases. We mentioned the very sluggish after which very fast rise of “hangry,” which has been round since at the least 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 (in fact) in magazines, newspapers, and web sites, with no rationalization wanted. Our dialogue of the 2 phrases additionally offers an enchanting (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 at the least partly due to the bodily nature of the product—within the digital age, there is not any want for such limits, and language can evolve way more shortly. Philosophy of language apart, poring by the archives of The Subsequent Massive Factor to look again at previous predictions with the good thing about hindsight was a enjoyable train, which I extremely suggest when you have got a while to spare.

Skip to minute 37:55 within the episode “It’s Not Over” on the WNYC web site to hearken to the complete Could 9, 2003 “What’s Your Phrase?” phase or to 43:25 for simply my bit, or learn on for the transcript of my name, then proceed under for my current 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 dwell 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 he or she stated, “Have you ever children 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: If you’re so hungry, you are simply prepared to tear somebody’s head off?

Megan: Precisely! It comes up so much on highway journeys, you understand, when you possibly can’t discover anyplace 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 is not dinner 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 might be, like, secretly having a meal earlier than we went out in order that I did not change into hangry.

Dean: I’ve completely performed that. I am guessing that Megan’s gonna have a better 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. Now we have “desk rage,” and “pc rage,” and “highway rage,” and “aircraft rage.”

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

Erin: Yeah.

Megan: [sounding defeated and resigned] Yeah.

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

Megan: Thanks.

Dean: Okay.

Megan: All proper.

Dean: Be effectively.

Megan: Bye.

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

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

Megan: May you give a bit of historical past/background of the “What’s Your Phrase?” phase you hosted on the Subsequent Massive Factor?

Erin: I went again and checked my electronic mail (I am a digital packrat, I hold every thing) and it appears like I obtained an electronic mail from Dean Olsher in January of 2002. At that time I might been working for Oxford College Press for a few 12 months 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 phase aired in April of 2002, I believe.

Megan: If you heard my pitch of “hangry,” what was it that made you assume it wouldn’t take off? May 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 really 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 guide—so we have been extra in a mode of in search of causes NOT to incorporate a phrase.

Dean: Wow, we actually blew it on this one, did not we? I am shocked that I did not embrace the phrase wholeheartedly, as a result of it makes me consider a humorous reminiscence from school. Throughout my junior 12 months in France, I led an English dialog group on the American Library on the town. Sooner or later a man stated: “After I get up within the morning, I’m very indignant, and I hit so much.” The remainder of us within the room exchanged anxious glances till we realized that he was hungry and ate so much.

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

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

Megan: In accordance with my analysis the earliest identified use of hangry was in 1910. Why do you assume the phrase didn’t take off sooner, and even after I pitched it, after which grew to become so ubiquitous?

Erin: It is so exhausting to say—that is completely a phrase that would have been used extra in speech and never made it into print (it is very casual). And the sorts of people that obtained their writing printed have been for a very long time the sort of people that virtually at all times had sufficient to eat, or who weren’t anticipated to be on diets. So maybe they only 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 instance of contraction; solely two are about individuals, 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 at the least Sept 2015, based on the Wayback Machine.

Megan: Are there different meals phrases you possibly can keep in mind that you known as or didn’t name through the years?

Erin: None spring instantly to thoughts…

Dean: Nicely, this could 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 track. That is how he ended up writing “Contrecoup,” which describes a sort of mind damage.

Megan: Any ideas on the following hangry? I.e. what are some meals phrases which can be effervescent beneath the floor now and may 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 parts” (from the at all times attention-grabbing “Second Breakfast” e-newsletter). I am additionally seeing lots of references to “meals noise” (fixed intrusive ideas about meals), particularly since semaglutide medicine appear to show them off.

Korean meals phrases appear to be getting extra fashionable, from dishes equivalent to tteokbokki, substances 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 part previous is new once more…

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

Erin: I believe as a result of it largely refers to at least one well-known chain, so…individuals simply would use the identify of the chain. 🙂  We do embody it in Wordnik, although, and have since 2015, with a lot 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 Critical Eats readers to learn about your work at this time?

Erin: I by no means actually preferred being the bouncer on the dictionary nightclub…I wish to let all of the phrases in to bounce! 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 individuals can assist the mission 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 just lately launched my debut album! Letters of Transit is at deanolsher.bandcamp.com.