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Ah, clichés. Figuring out who starts them isn't easy. In fact, we're often tempted just to say, "Yogi Berra!" and be done with it. But even though we avoid using clichés like, well, the plague, we love learning about their origins. So, without further ado, let's get the ball rolling. Not surprisingly, details on who coined the phrase, "coin a phrase" are sketchy. Our first stop was with the brainiacs at Bartleby. After poking around for any and all coin-related quotes, we found one intriguing possibility from the poet Alfred Tennyson: "All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from
many a golden phrase." Alas, while it mentions a "coin" and a "phrase," we didn't believe it was the answer. Take Our Word For It states that an Elizabethan writer named George Puttenham first uttered (or wrote) the phrase in 1589 in his book, "The Arte of English Poesie." And he certainly didn't intend it to be taken as a compliment. "Young schollers not halfe well studied...seeme to coigne fine wordes out of the Latin." Can't you just picture ol' Putty rolling his eyes, fed up with ignorant slackers making up words? As an explanation, it holds water (to use a hackneyed phrase).
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