Unidentified San Francisco reader · quoted in L. M. Boyd’s syndicated column, 1968
Nothing is known about “Erna” beyond what one newspaper column says. In 1968 L. M. Boyd quoted “a San Francisco girl named Erna”: she had “always maintained” that ‘benign’ is the most beautiful word in English and ‘malignant’ the ugliest. Boyd (1927–2007) was an American columnist whose trivia features ran in hundreds of newspapers. Quote Investigator calls Erna the top candidate for coining the line, not its proven author.