One of the interesting things to me about the history of comic strips is the affect that they've had on the English language. I've written about how a cartoonist's name has made it into the dictionary, about how strange holidays have been created and named in comic strips, but actual words being coined in comic strips is a different thing. It has happened a few times, though.

I stumbled across an interesting fact when reading about the George McManus creation The Newlyweds this week. George McManus is better known for his creation Bringing Up Father, but this earlier strip is interesting in that its title makes use of a word that had not yet been in common usage.

The Newlyweds, also called The Newlyweds and Their Baby after they had one, was about a couple who had, as the title suggests, not been married long. Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed, so the title refers to a proper noun, not the common noun that we know today. It wouldn't have been a common noun, because the strip began in 1904, and at that time the term newlywed was only used as an adjective. In doing a little more research about this, Dictionary.com dates the first use of the word "newlywed" as a noun to around 1915-1920. Merriam-Webster dates the first usage a bit earlier, to 1908. The comic strip had been around for at least four years at that time. This makes it very possible that the comic strip was a very early, if not the first, usage of newlywed not only as a noun, but as a plural noun. The Online Etymology Dictionary says as much:

also newly-wed, 1907, from newly + wed. Probably owes its origin to a then-popular newspaper comic strip, "The Newlyweds and Their Baby," about Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed, by George McManus in the New York "World." As an adjective, newly-wed is attested from 1833.

Very interesting. I know of some other words that were either coined or popularized by comic strips, which I plan to write on later, but it's great to see that it was happening even from their very early days.

Additional info:

The Newlyweds at Toonopedia

George McManus at Comiclopedia