Rapper created one of most-used phrases of all time and had ‘no idea’

A famous rapper is responsible for a slang word which has permeated through to modern parlance, and should be very proud of himself for making that happen - but he had no idea for the longest time.

There are all sorts of words which take off in popularity and before you know it everyone is saying them.

Rewind a few years and talk about 'rizz', you'd get a load of blank faces and people wondering if they needed to have you sectioned, language is a fight for survival and only the greatest terms have the staying power to last a long time.

One of the most popular slang terms which has been going for over two decades is 'goat', which stands for the 'greatest of all time', and can also be used in the form 'goated' to describe how superlative something or someone is.

It gets used on sports stars a lot such as Lionel Messi and LeBron James and is a richly deserved moniker, but some credit has to go to the man who made the phrase.

Let's not bleat around the bush, we know who the real GOAT is (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

That chap is the rapper LL Cool J, known for hits like 'Mama Said Knock You Out' and 'Headsprung', but above all, his 2000 album was titled 'G.O.A.T'.

You can see where this is going.

Speaking on CBS Sunday Morning in September 2024, the rapper revealed how he came up with the idea to name his album that.

The news reporter asked if people were surprised that he wanted to name an album after a farm animal, to which he explained: "I'll tell you where I got it from - greatest of all-time is Muhammed Ali, greatest of all time's obvious,

"Then Earl 'the Goat' Manigault, the street basketball player. I took those two, put them together, and introduced the farm animal that changed the world, baby," LL Cool J claimed.

If he came up with the term 'goat', does that make him the GOAT of GOATs? (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Coachella)

While many know of Ali's nickname, Earl Manigault is less well-known outside the basketball community, as he was considered one of the best basketball players to never play in the NBA.

Manigault claimed that he was nicknamed 'the Goat' because one of his high school teachers would wrongly pronounce his name as 'Mani-Goat'.

Suddenly the world was aware of the phrase 'GOAT' and it's caught on like verbal wildfire ever since then.

The word really reached its peak in 2018 when legendary footballer Lionel Messi took part in a photoshoot with an actual goat, just in case you forgot it was the name of a farm animal too.

Additional words by Josh Nair.