The word antidisestablishmentarianism first appeared in the 1890s, denoting “opposition to ending the Church of England’s status as the official state church”—the disestablishment of the church, in other words. This word didn’t take off in the U.S. until the 1950s, thanks to a 12-year-old’s appearance on a TV game show. Young Gloria Lockerman successfully spelled antidisestablismentarianism and other challenging words, including the sentence The belligerent astigmatic anthropologist annihilated innumerable chrysanthemums, to win $8000. Lockerman’s story is told in the new book Useless Etymology: Offbeat Word Origins for Curious Minds (Bookshop|Amazon) by Jess Zafarris, cohost of the Words Unravelled podcast. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “When the Word “Antidisestablishmentarianism” Became Popular in the US”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
And you know, these days when we hear the word anti-disestablishmentarianism, it’s usually just a kind of lexical stunt.
But it turns out that anti-disestablishmentarianism is not just a mouthful, it’s a real word.
It shows up in the 1890s as a political term, meaning opposition to ending the Church of England’s status as the official state church.
That is, the disestablishing of the church.
But when this word really took off in the United States was in the 1950s.
And there’s a fascinating story about why.
It involves the old TV game show, The $64,000 Question.
In 1955, a 12-year-old girl from Baltimore named Gloria Lockerman was on that show, and she correctly spelled anti-disestablishmentarianism.
And later on the show, she had to spell the sentence, the belligerent, astigmatic anthropologist annihilated innumerable chrysanthemums.
She got that one, too.
Gloria eventually could have gone on another round to try for a $64,000 prize, but on her grandmother’s advice, she decided just to keep what she’d already won and save it for college.
And as you might imagine, she became an instant celebrity overnight.
She was nationally known, and suddenly it seemed that everyone was going around saying and trying to spell anti-disestablishmentarianism.
And Gloria went on to college and eventually became a language teacher.
But for most of her life afterward, she avoided the spotlight.
And that was in part because as a black American with a suddenly high profile, she was also a target for abuse.
And I learned about this story from a new book by Jess Zepharis called Useless Etymology.
And Grant, as you know, Jess is also the co-host of the podcast Words Unraveled.
Yeah, it’s on YouTube, and they have many subscribers, and it’s a whole lot of fun.
Mm—
And you can find a video of Gloria Lockerman competing on this show online as well.
We can link to that.
So that’s Jess, J-E-S-S, Zafaris, Z-A-F-A-R-R-I-S.
And the book is Useless Etymology, and we’ll link to that from our website.
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