The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time (60 page)

He first used the word as the title of a 1974 book, subtitled
The High Cost of High Achievement,
which he wrote with Geraldine Richelson, defining
burnout
as “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.” In his native Germany, from which he fled in 1938, the term is
aus gebrant,
literally “burned out.”

Burnout
had been a 1940s term for “the sudden loss of rocket engine.” By the ’50s, it had been largely replaced by
flameout,
giving Dr. Freudenberger a chance to give it a new life with his psychological sense. Though he did not coin the word itself, as Mr. Oates did with
workaholic,
he gave
burnout
the sense by which it is known today.

Another man known to the word trade died in 1999. (We don’t use euphemisms like “passed away” or “departed this vale of tears”; when you die in this business, you die.) He never tried to pass himself off as a serious linguist or lexicographer, but his wordplay delighted his readers, stimulated interest in the world of words and sometimes instructed us with a light-verse touch.

The advertising and promotion man Willard Espy is best known for his almanacs of
Words at Play,
compiled and reissued by Merriam-Webster six months ago. Having fun with words can involve creative rhymes (“I do not roister with an oyster”) and nonce coinages (“my family was a scribacious lot”). As players of Scrabble and workers of crossword puzzles know, games are a good way to discover the glories of lexicography.

My favorite Espy production is “To My Greek Mistress,” an odd ode. “All you need to read off this verse as if it were English,” he noted, “is a vague recollection of the Greek alphabet.” (Begin by remembering that
is pronounced “psi,” and
is pronounced “rho.”)

Translation for those stimulated to brush up their Greek: