History
The suffix existed in English in a dormant state for a long time, in borrowed terms. An example is raskolnik, recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary as known since 1723. There have been two main waves of the introduction of this suffix into English language. The first was driven by Yinglish words contributed by Yiddish speakers from Eastern Europe. The second surge was observed after the launch of the first Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957.
In his book The American Language, first published in 1919, H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) credited the mania for adding "-nik" to the ends of adjectives to create nouns to Al Capp's American comic strip Li'l Abner (1934–77) rather than to the influence of "Sputnik", first recorded in 1957, or "beatnik", first recorded in 1958.
Read more about this topic: -nik
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)