BirtherIn yesterday’s “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine, Leslie Savan wrote that while the term “birthers” — “those who insist despite all evidence to the contrary that Barack Obama doesn’t have a U.S. birth certificate and therefore cannot legally be president” — wasn’t coined by disparaging lefties. Instead, she posits, it was birthed independently by conservative bloggers Steve Gilbert and Minnesota’s Ed Morrissey nearly 12 months ago.

Savan writes:

Birther seems to have been coined about a year ago, separately, by the conservative bloggers Ed Morrissey and Steve Gilbert. Last December, in dismissing the birth-certificate argument as a “canard,” Gilbert wrote, “The ‘birthers’ are the new ‘truthers.’ ”

But the term could have a three-way byline: David Weigel, of our sister site the Washington Independent, first published the term, on Dec. 7, 2008, although he says he’s been using it conversationally a bit longer. He’s reported on the topic extensively since, discussing the movement on MSNBC and other media outlets. (Morrissey, who blogs for Hot Air, has likewise written often on the movement, which he says in an email he’s “no fan” of.)

Morrissey, in an email shared by Weigel and used here with Morrissey’s permission, says he doesn’t recall where the word was first used:

While I wouldn’t mind sharing the credit here, I don’t have a specific recollection of coining the term.  And I certainly couldn’t tell you where I heard it first, whether in my own head or somewhere else.  If I was the first or tied for the honor, I’d be mildly surprised…

Regardless of its origin, the term has taken off. Google now shows nearly 40 million results on a search of “birther” and “Obama.” It’s no small feat, one that, Morrissey joked in his email to Weigel, he’s “not above putting [...] on my business cards.”