Etymology

Prodnose: Where does the word widget come from?

Myself: Glad you asked.

Nowadays - as I am very boring - I think of widgets as portable chunks of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation.

So far so good, but I first remember the word from the wonderful 1963 James Garner movie "The Wheeler Dealers". (Here at A Welsh Born Icon we are all about Lee Remick and John Astin and I recommend you check it out.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Widget says, "it might be worth mentioning here that Roald Dahl used the term widget to describe male gremlins in his book The Gremlins back in WWII". (Here at A Welsh Born Icon we are all about Roald Dahl.)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/widget says it is a "blend of window and gadget, coined by George S. Kaufman in his play Beggar on Horseback (1924)". (Here at A Welsh Born Icon we are all about George S. Kaufman and especially "The Man Who Came to Dinner".)

Now you know as much as me.

Prodnose: Whatever floats your boat.