Page "Quisling" Paragraph 1

The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times in an editorial published on 19 April 1940, entitled " Quislings everywhere " after the Norwegian Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi Germany as it conquered his own country so that he could rule the collaborationist Norwegian government himself.

The Daily Mail picked up the term four days later, and the BBC then brought it into common use internationally.

The Times editorial asserted: " To writers, the word Quisling is a gift from the gods.

If they had been ordered to invent a new word for traitor ... they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters.

Aurally it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous.