Coined by Carlyle

Introduction. For Charles Darwin, Thomas Carlyle was the man "most worth listening to." Carlyle wrote the best-known historical work of his age on the French Revolution, gave lectures to packed auditoriums, and coined the following words and phrases for the very first time 👇

How often do you hear the word visualize? Videos that visualize ideas go viral, startups uses visualization to raise funds, work mates tell each other: I'm not able to visualize that. Carlyle first coined the word to describe how smart leaders visualize patterns others can't!

Did you know Carlyle coined the word environment less than 200 years ago? Commonplace today, Carlyle's friend Sterling was so shocked by it that he called it "barbarous" and "without any authority." Novel language often shocks before people see its value!

The Dismal Science. Economics got its infamous nickname from Carlyle. Carlyle, a romantic, hated how the utility-maximizing economists were reducing everything to cost and benefit - entire existence reduced to a P&L sheet. He gave the discipline a sick burn that still haunts it.

In Feb 1822, Carlyle wrote to his to-be wife: "I know it the feeling of stormy self-help, when friends grow cold, and the world seems to cast us off, and the heart gathers force from its own wretchedness, converting its tortures into horrid arms." First ever use of self-help!

Thomas Carlyle's novel Sartor Resartus marks the first English use of: Speech is silver, silence is golden. How he elaborated on it: "Bees will not work except in darkness, Thought will not work except in Silence, neither will Virtue work except in secrecy."

Carlyle coined the phrase Captains of industry to describe the new 18th century industrialists who were radically reorganizing the workforce of the world. He contrasted them with the old captains of aristocracy - the noblemen he insultingly dubbed the Captains of Idleness!

Other words that Carlyle is credited with creating, or first using in their modern sense: Improvised, Decadent, Giggly, Gullible, Shiftiness, World-famous. Appropriate that a writer who was to become world-famous for his improvised language coined half the words in this line!

Malcolm Ingram: "The word most often used by critics to describe Carlyle's style is wildness, and other words often used to describe the overall effect of his prose include: exhilaration, amusement, fatigue, resentment, and feelings of being either converted or bullied."

Carlyle himself on his use of new words: "If one has thoughts not hitherto uttered in English books, I see nothing for it but you must use words not found there."