Cool – Charles Dickens

The phrase "cool" is widely spread among young people everywhere in the world today.  However, not many people know that among the first who used such phrase, in terms of leaving an impression on those who are present, was Charles Dickens, in 1837.

In his novel “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” (also known as The Pickwick Papers), Dickens described a scene in which a coachman is holding the reins of a horse with one hand, a remarkable feat, and then, with ease, with his other hand takes out a handkerchief from his pocket, showing others how "cool" he is.

However, this phrase didn’t spread among the young until the middle of the last century. From then and on it spread mostly thanks to jazz, Charlie Parker and the movie "West Side Story" in which members of the gang the “Jets" were so "cool”...