Croggle

To croggle is to amaze and awe or discombobulate and confound (or to go through such a process). Croggled describes the resulting state of mind. The form becroggle(d), perhaps after bewildered etc., has also been used.

The term was invented and developed in the course of the WO3W correspondence between U.S. fans Dean Grennell, Redd Boggs and Robert Silverberg circa early 1950s.

This scientificombination’s precise etymology was then disputed. Dick Eney's Fancyclopedia II stated that croggle combines the words crush and goggle (grammar purists will also note he gave definition in terms of adjective/participle, so actually equal to croggled, despite the disparity of the headword CROGGLE clearly being the infinitive), although Grennell said it is a combination of crumble and joggle. Silverberg later recalled that it was comprised of crush and "boggle, not goggle".

On the other hand Harry Warner, Jr. in A Wealth of Fable (first version 1976, but bear in mind Warner's career in fandom began much earlier than Eney's; still, both predated croggle) declared croggle "is normally a verb signifying intense disturbance of a subjective nature."

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

(Grennell) Roughly meaning shocked into momentary physical or mental paralysis; a portmanteau-word, apparently, combining "crushed" and "goggled", and usually passive or reflexive in application.

• See also: crottled greeps if only for the euphony (but coined by Grennell 1953!)
• https://sfdictionary.com/view/441/croggle , with citations, by Jesse Sheidlower et al.
  • https://sfdictionary.com/view/430/croggled
  • Same termterm in the venerable Oxford Reference

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Fanspeak

1950s—

This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc.