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Topic: Dagwood

Today we mark the birth of Murat Bernard Young, the cartoonist who was born on this date in 1901. Better remembered as Chic Young, today's birthday boy was the creator—in 1930—of the comic strip Blondie.

When Blondie was first published, the protagonist was a ditzy flapper whose beau, Dagwood, was the high living son of a billionaire, and the series' story lines featured fun and games. Once the Great Depression hit hard, Chic Young had Dagwood disowned for proposing marriage to a woman his father considered a goldigger. Blondie and Dagwood, like much of America, fell to struggling to make ends meet, and the strip established itself as a series about American family life.

After Chic Young died in 1973, his son and collaborator Dean, who identifies with Dagwood's love of naps and large sandwiches, took over the comic strip. Can you identify the Blondie-inspired term to have entered our lexicon? It's dagwood, the many-layered sandwich created and consumed with much gusto—again and again—by Blondie's beloved hero.

Speaking of heroes, that term for "large sandwich" entered English in the middle of the 20th century, the same era that gave us the terms hoagie and submarine.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.