Fred Hoyle is generally credited with coining this phrase, during a BBC radio broadcast in 1949, but if it's true that he popularised it, he almost certainly didn't mean to. He subscribed to the alternative Steady State theory, which does not fit later observations. He denied that he meant the phrase "big bang" as a pejorative, however, saying that it was just a striking image meant to highlight the difference between the two models.
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