Academy Award librarian Margaret Herrick famously coined the nickname for the prestigious Oscar statuette when she offhandedly remarked that the gold-plated figure looked exactly like her stern Uncle Oscar.

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Academy Award librarian Margaret Herrick famously coined the nickname for the prestigious Oscar statuette when she offhandedly remarked that the gold-plated figure looked exactly like her stern Uncle Oscar. Before this mundane observation in the 1930s, the incredibly self-serious film industry simply called it the Academy Award of Merit, which sounds like something a middle school principal hands out for perfect attendance. The entire multi-billion dollar Hollywood ecosystem eventually adopted the casual nickname, meaning the most coveted artistic prize on the planet, an award that drives adult professionals to weep uncontrollably on stage, is basically named after some random woman’s presumably boring relative from Texas. It brutally undercuts the entire glitzy majesty of the red carpet when you realize Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis have spent their entire lives desperately competing to collect little golden statues named after a mid-western farmer