Bigly, and Other Presidential Best Words
He promised during his 2016 presidential campaign that he had “the best words.” But the word that Donald Trump will perhaps become best known for introducing to the American lexicon is “bigly.”
Yes, I know he’s actually saying “big league,” but by the time most people figured that out they were already saying “bigly.” And, as words and phrases go in the era of the meme, it stuck.
Of course Trump is not the only president to originate novel words and phrases into American jargon. Here are a few of them and their “best words.”
Warren G. Harding (1921–1923) is known for practically nothing except this word. After nearly two decades of Progressive domestic reforms and the upheaval of World War I, Harding declared he would return the U.S. to a state of “normalcy.” He meant normality, but hey — it worked. People understood, and normalcy snuck into the American vocab. It’s been around so long it almost seems, well, normal.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) was an avid golfer. In 1947, before he was president, some reporters covering one of his rounds of golf heard him invoke the term “mulligan.” If you’re not a golfer, it means taking a do-over stroke. He didn’t exactly invent the term, but he popularized it. If it was good enough for the man who won World War II, it was good enough for every golfer out…
