Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Come on, man.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Evening Respite Thread: Words!

Evening Respite Thread: Words!

by | 124 Comments

This post is in: ,

I don’t know about you, but I sure would love a nice relaxing respite thread. So! My friend Louis was kind enough to bring this fun page to my attention this weekend:

I’m the same vintage as ‘dead-cat bounce’, ‘IP address’, ‘graphene’, ‘anime’, and ‘breakbeat’, to pick a few that I like. They aren’t all winners; ‘alternative country’ had the audacity to be first used in print* that year, too. What about y’all?

*Because we are all insufferable pedants, here’s how Merriam-Webster explains it, before we get too many outraged comments about the time you saw a memorable lecture on a word ten years before it’s listed, or whatever:

The date most often does not mark the very first time that the word was used in English. Many words were in spoken use for decades or even longer before they passed into the written language. The date is for the earliest written or printed use that the editors have been able to discover.

Reader Interactions

124Comments

  2. 2.

    Mary G

    ME:
    aerospace
    artificial intelligence
    home computer
    microwave oven
    Rastafarian
    wet suit
    yin-yang symbol

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    aerobics, biotech, big hair, grinch, granny glasses, sucker punch, yakuza, and zip code

  6. 6.

    Fair Economist

    I was mildly surprised to see how much my list was dominated by technical/scientific words, especially biological and medical. Not much “real” linguistic change.

  9. 9.

    Barbara

    There were many that surprised me (arugula and cruise control) but the three that are true markers of the era are Black Muslim, Fidelista, and peace corps. Honorable mention to meritocrat.

  10. 10.

    Patricia Kayden

    Let this sink in: The Trump administration plans to add asylum-seekers’ DNA to a database law enforcement uses to hunt criminals.Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. This is purely about demonizing people who are simply seeking a better life. https://t.co/YS4YVE8znE— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 21, 2019

  11. 11.

    Barbara

    @Fair Economist: My year included dullsville, guest worker and eldercare, along with keep away and meet and greet. But a lot of scientific and technical words as well.

  13. 13.

    Bruuuuce

    Hm. “affirmative action”, “computer science”, “low earth orbit”, and “afterparty” date from 1961

  15. 15.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    I’m the same vintage as ‘dead-cat bounce’, ‘IP address’, ‘graphene’, ‘anime’, and ‘breakbeat’, to pick a few that I like.

    I had no idea the word “anime” was that recent. I assumed it dated back to at least the 60s

    Anyway, some of my words are from the year I was born in, 1995, are:

    Anglosphere
    anti-globalization
    cap-and-trade
    click-through
    page view
    noob (had no idea it was so old)
    wiki (same here, in that context)
    eurozone
    instant messaging
    genderqueer
    page view
    USB
    VRSA

  16. 16.

    bemused senior

    Cermet will be glad to know his nym is from my year. As were dimsum, marinara and nachos. My favorite: unindicted coconspirator. 1948.

  25. 25.

    Dan B

    Beefcake
    Free swinging
    Lonely hearts
    Same-sex
    Cargo cult
    Green Beret

    And there was one that would get me banned and would make this list seem even racier.

  42. 42.

    Wag

    1961

    Ampicillin
    Antidepressant
    Black Friday
    Chocoholic
    La Dolce Vita
    Eating disorder
    Down Syndrome
    Embedded
    Fettuccine Alfredo
    Hyperlipidemia
    Lip-sync
    Wazoo

  50. 50.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Leto:

    Noob :P

    Hey, I resemble that remark! ;p

    I could’ve sworn medical marijuana was only a thing for the last 10 yrs or so

  59. 59.

    SiubhanDuinne

    1942 was a ludicrously active year. A tiny selection:

    Atomic reactor
    Bloodmobile
    Country and Western
    Dracunculiasis*
    Equity capital
    Fanzine
    Ginormous
    Harrumph
    In-migrant, in-migrate
    Jillion
    Knucklehead**
    Listening post
    Motor pool
    Napalm
    Oligopsony
    Postdoc
    Replicable
    Spelunker***
    Tunnel vision
    Uranium 238****
    Variety meat
    War game
    Young adult
    Zoot suit

    *Dracunculiasis is more commonly known as Guinea Worm. I am proud to have played a (very small) part in the success of The Carter Center’s near-elimination of this awful parasitic disease.

    **Waves to Raven

    ***Waves to OzarkHillbilly

    ****Waves to Cheryl Rofer

  60. 60.

    Mathguy

    I need to give M-W some cash. They do possibly the greatest job of trolling the shitgibbon with “Word of the Day,” and they have a fun webpage like this. They deserve it.

    Added note: Cartesian plane first appeared in print in 1960? That phrase seems much older to anyone in mathematics.

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    @HalfAssedHomesteader:
    I can tell you that Cobol hadn’t died until at least after 2005, because I worked at a company that still had 2 Cobol programers to maintain the programs they ran on IBM computers and used PCs as terminals to read. The programs weren’t all that and a bag of nuts but the people that signed the checks had zero idea what they were doing.

  67. 67.

    Fair Economist

    @JoyceH:

    Ballpoint pen?! I really am older than dirt, aren’t I?

    I was surprised that sliced bread was only sold commercially starting in 1928, meaning Betty White is older than sliced bread.

  68. 68.

    suezboo

    Some Good : artsy, bikini, chopped liver, role model
    Some Bad : counterculture, flying saucer, mandarin collar, methadone, party pooper
    Some Ugly : apartheid, final solution, Vietnamese

    I have lived in interesting times. 1947.

  69. 69.

    Fair Economist

    @Mathguy:

    I need to give M-W some cash. They do possibly the greatest job of trolling the shitgibbon with “Word of the Day,” and they have a fun webpage like this. They deserve it.

    I was liking the definitions I saw. They seemed concise but expressive. My experience with dictionary definition is that they’re not good if you don’t already know the word.

  70. 70.

    Steve in the ATL

    Air ball
    Cutoff man
    DOS
    Jihadist
    Peter principle
    Speed freak
    Supermodel
    THC
    Videoconferencing
    Yada yada

  71. 71.

    prostratedragon

    Whiskey, Tango, and Foxtrot in 1952?! Going to the explanation, it seems that this is when the communications code that uses them was first written. I guess it only applies to the capitalized usage.

    More interesting examples include cop out, fairness doctrine, limbic system, modem, and the ever-popular necrotizing fasciitis.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    Received a semi-frantic call from Mom today that one of the icons on her desktop screen had vanished. Just the one, and an empty slot where it had been.

    She swore she hadn’t done anything (someone did – those puppies don’t go walkabout on their own). Ended up guiding her through how to create a new shortcut icon to replace the missing one.

    Best guess is she had unconsciously laid a stack of papers or suchlike on top of the mouse and perhaps jostled them and the cursor just happened to be in the right spot to delete the shortcut.

  75. 75.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Leto:
    Now that I knew was pretty old. I miss the memes from the 2000s and the early 2010s. The YouTube memes of the last 4-5 years have been pretty hilarious, but lately “memes” have gotten a negative connotation. I blame edgy right-wing little snots

    @different-church-lady:

    YET to be confirmed…

    You never know : )

    @NotMax:

    It beats the alternative, right? ; )

  76. 76.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Major Major Major Major:

    In the “a picture with a caption” sense, it is, but yeah, Dawkins came up with it.

    Ugh, Dawkins. The only decent one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism it seems was Daniel Dennett

    BTW, are you still on vacation?

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Or so the propaganda has it.

    :)

    Which reminds me of a pet observation our little group came up with for post-apocalypse movies. To wit, that whenever such a film has or specifically mentions a “Forbidden Zone” it always turns out to be a lush, verdant paradise populated by buxom babes and strapping dudes.

    Translated into our role playing game sessions – whenever a game included a Forbidden Zone the party made a beeline for it.

  80. 80.

    Duane

    I have reliable suspicion that all pertinent information from this thread will be added to the appropriate files. //

  85. 85.

    justawriter

    Saw a number of people here who shared my natal year but declined to share that “poo” was one of the words on the list. Also mayo.

  86. 86.

    Wapiti

    @prostratedragon: I think Whiskey Tango Foxtrot came from the military phonetic alphabet that was adopted in 1952. That’s the current one that starts Alpha Bravo Charlie. The earlier alphabet used Able Baker Charlie (and William Tare Fox).

  88. 88.

    Ladyraxterinok

    Bermuda shorts, penny candy, private investigator, health care, roller coaster

    plus lots of war words

    Year—1940

  89. 89.

    dm

    I get Turing Test! Quantum leap! Also number line and surjective (hello, new math).

    Ultrahip.

    And to think, scrolling backwards, I had a moment of jealousy that my spouse got “ordinary language philosophy” and “reverse polish notation”….

  91. 91.

    Mel

    @Dan B: That list is a very strange short story just begging to be written! Throw in “slimnastics” “assertiveness training” and “nonoxynol-9” from my year and it’s off to the races.

  92. 92.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @NotMax:
    Yeah, that’s a staple of post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

    An obscure YA novel called This Time of Darkness by H.M Hoover from like 1980 that I read in middle school dealt with a similar theme.

    Namely, a brother and sister escape from a decaying “advanced” (magnetic tape was still being used) society underground and find a thriving civilization above ground. Don’t remember much beyond that, but I’m surprised it’s stuck with me all these years. The story itself was sort of generic imo

    I was only the third person to check it out from the school library since the early 80s (this was the late 2000s at the time)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    That’s too bad. Weren’t you in Europe?

    I’ve been good but busy. Just lots of studying and clinical paperwork and work

  93. 93.

    Duane

    Here’s one from 1959 that seems particularly suited to 2019: codswallop, meaning words or ideas that are foolish or untrue. I plan to use it regularly.

  100. 100.

    frosty

    A few at random, many of which I would have thought were older or younger. .

    3-D
    Birth control pill
    Church key
    Flame out
    Flab
    Murphy’s Law (really?)
    Mouthfeel
    Nerd
    Sarin
    Solid-state
    Teleprompter
    Truck stop
    White nationalist

    and a lot of chemical terms.
    1951

  101. 101.

    Tenar Arha

    It’s a mixed bag for sure: I mean Black Panther, dork, IUD, psyops, postfeminist (WTF we were barely even in 2nd wave feminism yet), & xerox.

  107. 107.

    Searcher

    @Leto: “Newb” is actually from my birth year. Other highlights: cyberpunk, piehole, superdelegate.

    It’s a shame there are so few new verbs; it makes it hard to play “longest sentence for a year”.

  110. 110.

    Mary G

    I like this one:

    Big week for @FSCDems: not only do we have Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, we also have HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin coming in tomorrow.I'm hard at work doing research and formulating questions that the American people deserve answers to.— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) October 21, 2019

    Last time he was here, Secretary Carson came unprepared, then sent Oreos to my office after the hearing. In case there was any doubt this time around, he should feel free to skip the cookies; I really only want the answers. https://t.co/O5hdR46apN— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) October 21, 2019

  112. 112.

    Origuy

    1956 had a lot of words relating to nuclear conflict: brinksmanship, first strike, meltdown, and dirty bomb. Computers were starting to be mainstream, with byte, central processing unit, microcomputer, and Turing test. Music was changing, as rockabilly and country rock appeared. So did barf, zilch, white flight, and a Balloon Juice favorite, nitpick.

    I will not hear about the death of COBOL; in the early 2000s, I was on the ANSI COBOL Standard Committee. The COBOL Tombstone was created in 1960 by a committee member who thought the language would die an early death. The tombstone is now in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. I hosted a meeting of the ANSI committee in the Bay Area during my time on the committee; we considered taking a field trip to the museum but we were afraid they would keep us for an exhibit.

  114. 114.

    J R in WV

    I had a scary youth… check out this list…

    ballistic missile
    bow shock
    brainwashing
    flak jacket
    H-bomb
    information retrieval
    kiloton
    mesopause
    postnuclear
    systems analysis

    There were also less scary words.

    tahini
    poblano
    Linear B
    cavalletti
    blue agave
    capellini
    And finally, crème fraîche which is a wonderful substance for the kitchen!

    1950 was a scary year looking back at it.

    Going back to bed now, fully intending to get several more hours of sleep with all those puppies gently snoring around us.

  117. 117.

    Jon Marcus

    Even given their disclaimer, how can they claim that “bully pulpit” was first used in 1963. When you click on it, they say that it was first used by Teddy Roosevelt. I kinda doubt he said much of anything in 1963!

    That’s not some obscure usage. That was the POTUS, speaking publicly and having his speeches published in major newspapers.

  122. 122.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jon Marcus: from an On Language column https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/27/magazine/on-language-right-stuff-in-the-bully-pulpit.html

    As every political writer knows, it was his cousin Theodore Roosevelt who first used the phrase bully pulpit.

    But go try to find where and when he said it. Dictionary writers like me have finessed the citation by vaguely referring to ”called by Teddy ‘a bully pulpit,’ ” but we have all worried about its being apocryphal.

Comments are closed.