[1] The term sniglet was conceived by comedian Rich Hall during his tenure on the 1980s HBO comedy series Not Necessarily the News.
[2] Each monthly episode featured a regular segment on sniglets, which Hall described as "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should".
[citation needed] The Hall books have their entries arranged in alphabetical order like a dictionary, with information on how to pronounce the word, followed by a definition and sometimes accompanied by an illustration.
[2] Humor writer Paul Jennings had published made-up meanings of real place-names in a 1963 essay appearing in The Jenguin Pennings.
[7][8][9] The similarities and relationship between the content of this book and the Hall concept of sniglets is noted, by Barbara Wallraff, in Word Court (2001).
[10] Douglas Adams believed that when the format of Lloyd's satirical TV show Not the Nine O'Clock News was sold to America—where it became Not Necessarily the News—the producers also took the made-up word definition concept, which became the sniglets popularized by Hall.
[12] Anne Wescott Dodd's A Handbook for Substitute Teachers (1989)[13] and Marcia L. Tate's Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Literacy Strategies That Engage the Brain (2005)[14] suggest creating sniglets as a classroom activity, and so bear out his claim.