The Oxford English Dictionary credits the word monopsony to Joan Robinson (1933) though she credits it to B.L. Hallward a classical scholar at Cambridge who though born in 1901 is still alive at the time of writing. The suffix is derived from OPSONEN which means to make your purchases often of dried fish and which is found in Aristophanes, the Wasps (twice), Plutarch and the New Testament. The natural ONEOMAI (buy) was rejected as it does not sound good with the MONO prefix (personal communication to David Card). The invention of the word oligopsony is credited to Walker (1943) who introduced it with the curious phrase ``it is surely only a matter of time before market situation number 23 is christened oligopsony", the time referred to being the time necessary for him to finish writing the sentence.