Did Gary Carter, who rarely cursed, coin the term 'F-Bomb'?

Erik Malinowski is on a role for us today. He reported that Merriam-Webster is adding their new words for the year: F-bomb, sexting, energy drink, life coach, and 96 other entries. The most interesting to us? The F-Bomb may have been first dropped by NY Mets catcher Gary Carter:

So who's responsible for lobbing F-bomb far and wide? Kory Stamper, an associate editor for Merriam-Webster, said she and her fellow word spies at the Massachusetts company traced it back to 1988, in a Newsday story that had the now-dead Mets catcher Gary Carter talking about how he had given them up, along with other profanities.

But the word didn't really take off until the late '90s, after Bobby Knight went heavy on the F-bombs during a locker room tirade.

"We saw another huge spike after Dick Cheney dropped an F-bomb in the Senate in 2004," and again in 2010 when Vice President Joe Biden did the same thing in the same place, Stamper said.

"It's a word that is very visually evocative. It's not just the F-word. It's F-bomb. You know that it's going to cause a lot of consternation and possible damage," she said.

Carter rarely uses profanity, so he was taken aback when umpire Greg Bonin leveled some on him in the seventh inning Monday night in Pittsburgh. Carter was called out on strikes and told Bonin he thought the pitch was outside. "He started cursing me and said I accused him of being a liar," Carter said. "After he started cursing, I walked away and I said, 'Why are you cursing at me?' He said, 'I talk like that.' I said, 'OK, guttermouth.' " Carter said he has been thrown out only twice in the majors, both times by Eric Gregg. "That was when I used to use the F-bomb."

Fuckin' A.

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