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:
This website tells you what words were born the same year you were.
Delighted to share the stage with “cringey,” “chat room,” “FYI,” “deets,” and “perestroika.” https://t.co/Z2yHqYQdXj
— BOO-is Frightsman (@LouisPeitzman) October 19, 2019
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.
BruceFromOhio
Play action pass and the bobble head doll. It’s a Catch-22.
Mary G
ME:
aerospace
artificial intelligence
home computer
microwave oven
Rastafarian
wet suit
yin-yang symbol
mrmoshpotato
Brewpub and mosh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
aerobics, biotech, big hair, grinch, granny glasses, sucker punch, yakuza, and zip code
feebog
Chugalug. HA!
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.
delk
Coffee-table
Fish finger
Kissing disease
Nuclear option
Sit com
Win-win
ETA porn
opiejeanne
antimatter.
action figure.
Air date
Alphanumeric
ayatolla
baby oil
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.
Patricia Kayden
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.
TomatoQueen
aikido, Sovietologist, zydeco
all of which surprised me
1955
Bruuuuce
Hm. “affirmative action”, “computer science”, “low earth orbit”, and “afterparty” date from 1961
Redshift
Low Earth orbit
Wayback Machine
I’m good with that.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
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
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.
HumboldtBlue
You’ve never been Rick-rolled this smoothly or this sweetly.
Leto
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Noob :P
Some of my favorites:
Bicycle shorts
Butterfly effect
Couch potato
Digital camera
Ethernet
Femtosecond
Gigaflop
Idiotproof
Medical marijuana
PMS
Supergravity
Wuss
Barbara
@Leto: If only we could idiotproof fellow citizens.
JoyceH
Ballpoint pen?! I really am older than dirt, aren’t I?
different-church-lady
Okay, seriously? “Conjugated?!?”
Mike in NC
TV Dinner
Wonk
From 1954
different-church-lady
@Barbara: Or our presidents.
JR
Eicosanoid
Electronica
Tiki bar
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.
different-church-lady
@JR:
Lucky dog.
HalfAssedHomesteader
COBOL.
(Do they have a way to tell when a word died?)
FlyingToaster
@HumboldtBlue: Holy moly. That’s just… weird.
This from the mom who put a 10 minute loop RickRoll for WarriorGirl back when she was WarriorBabyGirl. And, of course:
Thanksgiving
(bookmarked. Seriously)
HumboldtBlue
@FlyingToaster:
I love it.
We’re no strangers to love.
Martin
Noogie, pube, and yo, with a shoutout to traveler’s diarrhea.
Martin
@HalfAssedHomesteader: COBOL is far from dead.
Unfortunately.
different-church-lady
Has there ever been a better night to use the Sam Darnold Meme Generator?
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: you were born in 1882?
FlyingToaster
@HalfAssedHomesteader: It’s still there, running on a mainframe in Virginia. Alas.
I suspect COBOL will outlive Perl.
Barbara
@different-church-lady: There was a time that wasn’t actually a word?
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: WHAT IS YOUR POINT HERE, JUNIOR?
Zelma
Lots of military terms, since I was born mid-WWII. My favorite was hoagie.
Leto
@different-church-lady: I think all of us here were wondering if you could buy us beer?
HalfAssedHomesteader
@FlyingToaster: Won’t we all be surprised when we discover the cockroaches have mastered COBOL.
different-church-lady
@Leto: No, but in a different world I would mix a perfect Mai Tai for each and every one of you.
TaMara (HFG)
Designated hitter..toaster oven
Wag
1961
Ampicillin
Antidepressant
Black Friday
Chocoholic
La Dolce Vita
Eating disorder
Down Syndrome
Embedded
Fettuccine Alfredo
Hyperlipidemia
Lip-sync
Wazoo
Leto
@different-church-lady: Deal!
different-church-lady
@HalfAssedHomesteader:
different-church-lady
@Leto: Okay. Bring me a different world and I’ll get right on it.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@different-church-lady: Ha!
thruppence
“Barf”, “gobsmacked”, and “kitten heel”
1956
NotMax
Fire.
:)
oatler.
gabbung
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Leto:
Hey, I resemble that remark! ;p
I could’ve sworn medical marijuana was only a thing for the last 10 yrs or so
NotMax
An actual “Say what now?” result from the large list of words for that year:
Whiskey.
Leto
@different-church-lady: I have brought you a different world. Mai Tai, please :)
Ruckus
supercomputer
diesel fuel
hologram
recreational vehicle
trimaran
West Nile encephalitis
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
DCL is an immortal confirmed
Quaker in a Basement
I’m as old as FORTRAN. Bloody hell.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
You’re an immortal, too? ; )
different-church-lady
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: YET to be confirmed…
Leto
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I could’ve sworn “meme” was an internet born term, but nope!
SiubhanDuinne
1942 was a ludicrously active year. A tiny selection:
*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
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.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
So far…
:)
Major Major Major Major
@Leto:
In the “a picture with a caption” sense, it is, but yeah, Dawkins came up with it.
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.
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: Any part in that was a part well played. Thank you!
Night everyone!
different-church-lady
@Leto: Okay, well the best I can do here is tell you to use Trader Vic’s original formula and Appleton Reserve rum.
Jerzy Russian
Is there anyone here who isn’t older than dirt?
Fair Economist
@JoyceH:
I was surprised that sliced bread was only sold commercially starting in 1928, meaning Betty White is older than sliced bread.
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.
Fair Economist
@Mathguy:
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.
Steve in the ATL
Air ball
Cutoff man
DOS
Jihadist
Peter principle
Speed freak
Supermodel
THC
Videoconferencing
Yada yada
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.
billcinsd
@Redshift: Soul music and wazoo, too
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.
billcinsd
There seem to be many people born the same year as President Obama here
??? 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:
You never know : )
@NotMax:
It beats the alternative, right? ; )
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Ugh, Dawkins. The only decent one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism it seems was Daniel Dennett
BTW, are you still on vacation?
Mel
@Steve in the ATL: Shout out to my fellow 1967er!
Also: flower child, hissy-fit, and ocicat.
Fair Economist
@different-church-lady: That’s “conjugated” used in the sense of chemical bonds, not in the older more general sense. There was a word like that in my list too.
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.
Duane
I have reliable suspicion that all pertinent information from this thread will be added to the appropriate files. //
Steve in the ATL
@Duane: this isn’t some prole website like Daily Kos, dude. We have dossiers, not files!
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I like Dennett. And no, alas, I am not.
How have you been?
Duane
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Not Max was there when immortals were created.
NotMax
@Duane
What can I say? We needed a fourth for bridge.
:)
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.
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).
Steeplejack
@different-church-lady:
1882? You are old!
Ladyraxterinok
Bermuda shorts, penny candy, private investigator, health care, roller coaster
plus lots of war words
Year—1940
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”….
Heywood J.
Another 1967
chump change
dirtbag
doobie
firmware
midi
samizdat
stun gun
user fee
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.
??? 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
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.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I was! Now I am in California. For work.
Jager
@different-church-lady:
He was heard to say tonight after his 3rd interception, “I’m seeing ghosts”
Steeplejack
@Duane:
The Deep Juice databots are hoovering up the information right now.
ETA: Bafflegab.
Jager
@Ladyraxterinok:
1945 “A-Bomb”
Mary G
KrakenJack
@Jerzy Russian: I, for one, am only as old as mud.
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
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.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Convention? Meetings? NorCal or SoCal? LA in particular is an amazing place. Ever eaten at Pink’s?
frosty
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I did my time in SoCal. Never went to Pink’s but hit Tommy’s Burgers on Beverly and Ramparts more than once.
Amir Khalid
@Bruuuuce:
Our year also includes grok (from Heinlein’s classic novel), AA battery, chocoholic, and Jack Russell terrier.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mary G: Are we surprised?
Duane
@Steeplejack: Life is never easy for a Blog Lord.
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”.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: SF. It’s where company HQ is. There’s actually only two of us in NY on this particular team.
Martin
@Jerzy Russian: I like it here. I’m 50 and feel young.
Mary G
I like this one:
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Geez, 1970 was a doozy:
Agent Orange
Labradoodle
Punk rock
Pro-life
Techie
Whistle-blower
Just to name a few….
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.
HinTN
bafflegab, deep-six, kvetch for starters.
Cool
ETA: stoned and stride piano are fine, too.
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.
HeartlandLiberal
Onion Rings. 1946. You can thank me now.
Bobby Thomson
A number of sexually transmitted diseases.
Hey, I was precocious.
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.
Richard Guhl
@Dan B:
You and me both
Olivia
@Dan B: Same as mine. I was going to put that word on here but thought better of it.
misterpuff
@thruppence: Also Ted Cruz’s favorite activity “swinging”.
Thanks 1956
JustRuss
Hmmm:
Kludge
Can of Worms
Fender Bender
Scuzzy
and…..Porn.
Checks out.
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
BroD
ANGST!
BubbaDave
Bad hair day and punk rock. And unmacho. It me.