BORN IN FICTION

10 Words You Didn’t Know Have Literary Origins

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Even now, when reading seems to be on the decline compared to the past, literature still plays an important role in how we construct our everyday language. From Shakespearean soliloquies to modern sci-fi jargon, literature has gifted us with a plethora of words that now pepper our conversations.

Let's explore 10 captivating examples of words that originated in fiction and literature, illuminating the enduring power of narrative to change the world.

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Coined by 18th-century English writer and art historian Horace Walpole in a letter to a friend, this word refers to a fortunate discovery made by accident. After making an unexpected discovery about a lost artwork, he referenced an ancient Persian tale called The Three Princes of Serendip, where its three protagonists would be - Walpole told his correspondent - "always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of."

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Inspired by Miguel de Cervantes' iconic novel Don Quixote, this term describes someone who is extravagantly idealistic and impractical. It stems from the chivalrous but delusional character Don Quixote, who often embarked on fanciful quests in pursuit of romanticized ideals but losing sight of reality on the way, to the point of confusing ordinary windmills with the mythical giants of old tales.

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Joseph Heller popularized this phrase in his satirical novel of the same name, depicting a paradoxical situation in which escape is impossible because of contradictory rules. Set in World War II, from the perspective of a U.S. Air Force Captain, the novel explores the absurdity of war and bureaucratic logic through the protagonist's futile attempts to evade combat duty and the unreasonable demands of his superiors.

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George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece 1984 left an enduring legacy in the form of a rich vocabulary related to censorship and control. Some terms like "Big Brother," "Doublethink," or "Thought Police" are still popular in everyday speech. In the novel, these words form part of "Newspeak," a controlled language used by the totalitarian regime of Oceania in order to restrict freedom of thought and manipulate public perception.

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Coined by William Gibson in his groundbreaking science fiction novel Neuromancer, cyberspace refers to the virtual reality of computer networks. Gibson's pioneering work anticipated the internet age and our modern dependence on technology, helping shape our contemporary understanding of digital landscapes and connectivity.

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Thanks to Charles Dickens's timeless classic A Christmas Carol, the name Scrooge has become synonymous with selfishness and greed. Unfortunately for Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of the short novel, despite undergoing a transformative journey of redemption in the story, we mostly remember him by his worst side.

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Although the word has a disputed etymology, the popularity of the word "nerd" likely owes to its usage in Dr. Seuss' If I Ran the Zoo where it referred to an imaginary creature. However, the term underwent a transformation in meaning over the years. It eventually evolved into a derogatory term for bookish people with a noticeable lack of social skills. Nowadays, though, it has lost its negative connotations and it is used to describe someone passionate or knowledgeable about niche interests in the realm of science and technology.

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Coined by Czech playwright Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the term robot is derived from the Czech word "robota," meaning forced labor. Surprisingly - taking into account that it was written in the 1920s - Čapek's visionary play explores themes of artificial intelligence, automation, and the ethical implications of creating sentient beings.

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Initially an abbreviation of "between" dating back to the year 1300, the term "tween" took on a new meaning in the late 20th century. Influenced by the word "teen," it emerged as a noun referring to a child nearing puberty, typically between the ages of 9 and 12. However, an alternative usage was popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien, who employed the term in The Lord of the Rings, to describe the "irresponsible twenties between [Hobbit] childhood and coming of age at thirty-three."

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Coined by Sir Thomas More in the 16th century, in his influential work Utopia, this term describes an idealized, imaginary society characterized by harmony, equality, and prosperity. More's vision of a perfect civilization has sparked countless literary and philosophical explorations into the possibilities and pitfalls of utopian ideals. The opposite concept would be a "dystopia."

From cave paintings to touch screens

Where is the @ sign called "cinnamon bun"? Decoding typographic symbols

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Symbols are everywhere—from ancient manuscripts to Instagram captions. Elegant, cryptic, or quirky, certain typographic characters have communicated their meanings across mediums for centuries. The @ symbol, for example, appeared in merchant notes long before its use in email. And the asterisk has been catching eyes since ancient Greek scholars marked corrections with "little stars." In this article, we dive into the origins of these everyday symbols—you may never look at a question mark the same way again!

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We’ll start at the very beginning. Alpha, or α, is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, represented by a character similar to our lowercase "a." It traces back to the Phoenician letter aleph, which meant "ox." It was expressed with a shape that resembled the animal’s head: 𐤀.

So yes, we could say that our letter "A" is distantly derived from a drawing of a head. Because of its position at the start of the alphabet, the term alpha often refers to the first in a series—alpha particles, alpha software, and even alpha wolves are examples. It’s associated with leadership, hierarchy, and beginnings.

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We know that pi (π) represents the ratio between the circumference and diameter of a circle, which is roughly 3.14. Because of this, Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14), often accompanied by mathematical discussions and, well, pies. But what’s the origin of the "T"-like symbol?

Simply put, π is the lowercase letter "p" in the Greek alphabet. In the 18th century, Welsh mathematician William Jones adopted it in place of the word perimeter, since it’s the first letter of that word in Greek (περίμετρος). Since then, the symbol has been used to represent the mathematical constant we know today.

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The "at" sign (@) has a wide array of names around the world. Some of them refer to its curious shape: in Italy, it’s called chiocciola (snail), and in Sweden, kanelbulle (cinnamon bun). Although we now see it daily in email addresses and on social media, its earliest documented use dates back to the 16th century, when merchants and scribes used it to mean "at the rate of" or "each"—for example: "5 apples @ $2."

In the 1970s, however, an American scientist used it to send the first email. The symbol came in handy for separating the user’s name from the machine or server name. Five decades later, not a day goes by without millions of people hitting that key to use the symbol.

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We see it in titles (Law & Order), in company names (Ben & Jerry’s), and even in abbreviations (R&B). The ampersand symbol (&) is considered one of the oldest symbols still in regular use today. It originated as a ligature—a combination of the Latin letters E and T from the word et ("and").

In 1st-century Roman cursive, scribes began merging e and t for quicker writing; the "&" shape evolved over time, becoming more stylized during the Middle Ages. The name ampersand emerged in the 1800s, when, in early grammar schools, children reciting the alphabet would conclude with "&" (then considered the 27th letter) by saying: "and per se and" (meaning "and, by itself, means ‘and’"). Over time, this phrase slurred into ampersand.

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Some call it the "hash," the number sign, or the pound sign. Today, many know it as the "hashtag," owing to its use as a tagging device on social media. Its formal name, however, is the "octothorpe."

The octothorpe may have evolved from the Roman shorthand symbol ℔, which meant "pound in weight." Over time, it gained horizontal strokes, transforming into the # shape we recognize today. Since the 1960s, many people have known it as the "#" key on telephone keypads. In 2007, Twitter product designers adopted the symbol to group conversations—an idea that worked so well it soon spread across most social media platforms.

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In typographic terms, it’s called an "interrogation point." It marks a simple, direct question when placed at the end of a sentence, but we’ve also come to associate it with playful surprises or enigmas—like mystery boxes in games. But who decided that the dotted curl would stand for questions, though?

The question mark evolved from the Latin word quaestio ("question"). Early scribes abbreviated quaestio as "qo," placing the "o" above the "q." Over time, the "q" curved downward, and the "o" became the dot—forming the "?" we know today. By the 13th century, the modern question mark shape was widely adopted by European scholars. It became a standard punctuation mark with the rise of printing during the Renaissance.

Image: Deden Dicky Ramdhani

So, what about the punctuation mark for exclamation? The exclamation mark has origins not too different from the question mark. In Latin, the word io (an exclamation of joy or triumph) was written with the "i" above the "o." Over time, scribes stylized this into "!", with the "i" becoming the vertical line and the "o" turning into the dot.

Still, it wasn’t until the 15th century that it became a standard symbol in writing. Before that, people relied on word choice or context to convey emphasis. Even today, some writers choose to avoid it. Style guides like The Chicago Manual of Style recommend using exclamation marks sparingly, arguing that "good writing" shouldn’t need them.

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The percentage sign, used to express a fraction out of a hundred, is another example of a symbol that evolved over the centuries into a scribble in itself. In Latin, per centum was used often, meaning "per hundred." When written down in early manuscripts, it was abbreviated as "pc" or "p100." Over time, the "p" disappeared, and the "100" was transformed into the two dots we recognize today.

Did you know that there is a similar sign meaning "per thousand"? The symbol "‰" (per mille) is a lesser-known cousin of the percentage sign and is still used in scientific and financial contexts.

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The "asterisk," as we know it today, was already drawn in cave paintings. Simple as it is, the figure must have always been compelling. The first time it was used to mark corrections or omissions in texts was by an early Greek scholar. They called this sign asteriskos, meaning "little star."

As early as the Middle Ages, it began being used around words or sentences to imply emphasis—similar to how we use it today in digital texts. In plain-text formats, we use the "" symbol to make specific words or letters appear bold.

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The crossed-out "S" represents currency in the United States and many other countries, including Canada and Australia. In fact, the dollar sign originated from the symbol used in business correspondence to refer to the Spanish peso in the 18th century, also known in British America as "pieces of eight."

The peso was abbreviated as "ps" or "P$," representing "peso" and "silver." Over time, the "P" evolved, and scribes began merging it with the "S" into a single character. This stylization eventually led to the familiar "$," with one or two lines crossing the capital "S." The dollar sign became widely adopted in the United States after the country's independence.