Essay:Surprising Dates of Origin for Terms
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One can learn history simply by skimming a dictionary that has the origination of terms. But there are many surprises. Add to our growing list:
| New Term | Origin date | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| bill of rights | 1798 | Wow: that's many years after it was added to the Constitution! |
| fission | 1617 | Looks like nuclear fission is not a new idea after all! |
| flagpole | 1884 | What did flags hang on for centuries before that? |
| separation of church and state | 1802 | More than ten years after the adoption of the First Amendment, the least Christian of the early presidents (Thomas Jefferson) used the phrase for the first time in an appeasing letter to Baptists. (It's also important to note that he used the term to assure them that their religious rights took precedence over the government--not the other way around.) The Supreme Court did not endorse this phrase until the liberal Justice Hugo Black used the term in 1947 (Everson v. Board of Education). (The Court also quoted from the Jefferson without endorsing the phrase in the 1879 polygamy case of Reynolds v. United States). |
| worldwide | 1632 | Did people really think in terms of the entire world nearly 400 years ago? Apparently so. |