Falling Hare with Bugs Bunny (1943) | Warner Classics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUde4a2Bgb8
Bugs Bunny tries to prevent the wrecking of an American military aircraft by a gremlin.
Nobody copied Bugs Bunny. That was the definition of "gremlin" before there was a Bugs Bunny. It comes from British air force slang.
grem·linshare
/ˈɡremlən/
nouninformal
noun: gremlin; plural noun: gremlins
an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault, especially a mechanical or electronic one.
"a gremlin in my computer omitted a line"
The word Gremlin originated from Roald Dahl, who was a WW2 pilot.
shareNo, Buffy, you're wrong again. Stop watching cartoons and do some research.
In fact, gremlin is first recorded only in the 1920s, as a Royal Air Force term for a low-ranking officer or enlisted man saddled with oppressive assignments. Said to have been invented by members of the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, gremlin is used in works written in the 1940s for "an imaginary gnomelike creature who causes difficulties in aircraft." The word seems likely to have been influenced by goblin, but accounts of its origin are various and none are certain. One source calls in Fremlin beer bottles to explain the word; another, the Irish Gaelic word gruaimín, "ill-humored little fellow."share
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=gremlin
Gremlin was used in the 20s, agreed. But in the 40s Roald Dahl was the first to imagine the gremlin as a creature that likes to make mischief in airborne planes.
shareWhat about the Royal Air Force don't you understand?
shareI didn't understand your point. Can you clarify please?
shareOkay, if pilots invented the term don't you think it was applied to aircraft phenomenon? It's not like the term was invented by sailors. Dahl was in the RAF and obviously learned the term there.
shareDahl learned the term but was the first to apply it to an imaginary creature of his own making. Before it was a pejorative term for a low ranking officer. It says it right there in the article you quoted.
shareIt doesn't say he was the first to use it for a creature in the article. He applied it to his cartoons. But he was not a linguist.
shareDahl was not a cartoonist. He was an author of children's book and short stories mostly for adults. He says clearly in his autobiography, Going Solo, that he came up with the idea. Nobody has had a problem with this claim. Proof of absence.
shareHuh? It's just a fact that he didn't invent the term or the definition. I link my sources.
While Roald Dahl popularized the term, he did not coin it.share
In the 1920's sporadic reports came filtering in from RAF pilots in Malta, the Middle East and India of 'gremlins'- mischievous sprites tinkering and causing mechanical troubles to their flying machines. At the time, it was superstition not to mention them by name.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12879181/Did-Roald-Dahl-invent-word-gremlin-html