Question: What Texas politician coined the term “gobbledygook”?
Answer: Maury Maverick, the one-time mayor of San Antonio whose grandfather Samuel Maverick is the namesake of the term “maverick” (which originally referred to his unbranded cattle). During his tenure as chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, Maverick penned a memo to his staff in which he directed his employees to “be short and say what you’re talking about,” advising them to avoid “gobbledygook language” because it “only fouls people up.”
Several newspapers reported on the memo. When asked how he came up with the term, Maverick explained, “Perhaps I was thinking of the old bearded turkey gobbler back in Texas who was always… strutting about with ludicrous pomposity.”
