25 common words that did not exist before the 1980s
And you thought "gourmets" and "yuppies" were 21st century problems.
As long as the language existed,He was malleable. This is especially true in today's world, where culture moves faster than ever and that the things we take for granted today could be very different tomorrow. Just think about some of the words that have become ubiquitous - a word like "Google", for example. Do you remember a moment when Google was not a word? We do not want to say that it was not a word that we used frequently - it was literally not a word thatexist Again. Imagine1980 and tell someone from "Search on Google. "They would think you were a mad person! Here are 25 words that you may not realize thatentered our language--Or, at the very least, becomes banal, less than four decades four decades ago. And for terms of the previous decade, consult25 common words that did not exist before the 1970s.
1 Canal surf
Cable and satellite television was still in its infancy in 1986 whenThe The Wall Street newspaper Created with a fun way to describe the short range of attention on visualization with too many television options. "Canal surfing would soon be reproducing" Web Surf "and today, when most people hear the word" surfer ", they think more often to mass media than to mount an oceanic wave. And for a little history,The amazing origins of the terms of the argot of every day that you constantly use.
2 Spreadsheet
Before Microsoft Excel has been1982 unveiledCollaborations filled with lines and columns to help calculate digital data were not familiar with the average person. It was something left to accountants. Nowadays, even college children know their way around a spreadsheet.
3 OH
When Homer Simpson (expressed byDan Castellaneta) Pronounced his first "oh" (which was written in the script as "annoyed groak") in a short 1988 called "punch bag" on theTRACEY ULLMAN SHOW, who could have predicted that it would become one of the most repeated and the most belovedcomic quotes all time? And for the terms that still had to come after the 1980s, consult25 common words that did not exist before the 1990s.
4 Emo
Short for "Emotional Hardcore", Emo was invented to describe a very specific punk scene in Washington, D.C. but the exact origins are "wrapped in mystery", according to the authorAndy Greenwald In his 2003 bookNothing is good: punk rock, teens and emo. "He arrived first into a joint practice in 1985. If a minor threat was hardcore, the spring rites, with his modified objective, were hardcore emotional or Emocore."
5 Foodie
It all started withnew York Criticism of the food of the magazineGael Greene, who offered the world with the word "Gourme" in aReview 1980 Olympus's restaurant. He came during a particularly poetic passage, in which she described a typical dinner "(slippery) in the small dining room Art Deco ... to graze cheeks with his devotees, serious greedings." He has taken the problem significantly, and today Foodie is used to describe anyone with a burning passion for large eats. And for the words you have to spend your lexicon during your age,These are all argot terms that you are too old to use after 40.
6 Steering wheel
White articulated hostility between its motorist colleagues is now so common that it's almost a cliché. But the phrase "rage of the road" is close to a specific incident, a confrontation between two motorists on a highway of Los Angeles during the summer of 1987, in which a father of a three-year-old child - the Child was in the car to the car time was shot in the cold blood for driving 65 mph (the speed limit) in the path. Anchors for the local press stationKtla would have been Violence as "road rage" and a terrible heritage is born.
7 Thirty years
Before 1987, your age was something a little more, good, mathematically accurate. If you were 34 years old, you would describe your age as 34. But after the first of 1987 of the drama ABC Hit ABCThirty and some, About a group of self-absorbed friends in Philadelphia (all ostensibly in their thirties), it became acceptable to be vague about your age. Describing as "thirty-something" was now an adorable way to avoid the question. And for more content on the origins of word and slang delivered in your inbox,Sign up for our daily newsletter.
8 Break dance
The art-shaped case existed long before the dominant current discovers it. But in 1982, theDaily news I tried to present this exciting and adventurous dance movement to a wide audience (that is, suburban). "These are young street guys ... anywhere from 10 to 23 years old," theThe author explained. "What they do is a new dance style known as" break "or" break dance "."
9 Faq
Acronym FAQ-Short for "Frequently Asked Questions" - are not something untilNasa searcherEugene Miya Created for the 1983 spatial broadcast list, meeting some of the most common queries of people working in the space program. "I did not do the very first FAQ," MiyaOnce noticed. "But I probably did the first in nature." Maybe it's just up to us, but it sounds like a very veiled difference against all other FAQs.
10 Emoticon
Scott Fahlman, a computer professor at Carnegie Mellon University, offered the first emoticons in 1982 - a side smiley face with two eyes and a nose, and his companion, the face of the bringing - heexplained at the time were "probably more economical to score things that are not jokes, given the current trends." Nowadays, the emoticon has fully evolved inThe emoji.
11 Shock jock
Howard Stern can be the most famous shock jock in the world, but I'm a radio disc jockeyPetey greene is the original radios jock. The Greene radio show,Rapping with Petey Greene, was a huge success in Washington, D.c., in the late 1960s and in the early 1970s, and it'soften credited As "pioneering shocks", although this term is used for the first time to describe it in 1986, two years after his death
12 Portable
Laptops were already on the market in 1981, but it would take a few more years before starting to be largely qualified as "laptops". TheFirst official laptop computer Was the Gavilan SC, introduced in May 1983, which came with 48 KB of Rom (a much lower technology than the RAM you would find in today's machines) and costs about $ 4,000.
13 Microbrewery
TheNew York Times did not invent the word "micro-brewery" -Small-batch Brewers had long been popular in the United Kingdom - but when they reported a micro-brewery from northern California,in 1983They were the first public publication in the United States to use the term.
14 Hip hop
It was the first lines of 1979 from Sugarhill Gang 1979 which introduced the word "hip-hop" to the masses. But it was notUp to 1982, whenVillage voice journalistSteven Hager predicted that "hip-hop could be considered as the most significant artistic achievement of the decade", which it became more than just a word.
15 Cyberspace
Science fiction authorWilliam Gibson came with the word "Cyberspace" for his short history of 1982 "burning Chrome", but it took his 1984 novelNeuromancer To enter the Zeitgeist. As he explainedin an interview, the word came from his need to create "this meaning of another area, a sense of the agency in my daily life, in search of pieces and pieces of reality that could be paved in the arena of which I needed. "
16 Postal mail
Before he had "snail post", it was just ... mail. There are two possible origins for the way this sentence has come. We are that it was pronounced for the first time byJim Rutt, CEO once both network solutions, whichwould have predicted Back in 1981, the email would make all other connections feel like a postal mail. The other possibility is the lively special issue of 1981Shortcake with strawberry in the big town of apple, where the mail is delivered to the eponymous character by post:literally A snails carrier.
17 Respectful of nature
Travel to clothes, "respectful of nature"Has become one of the words of the modern marketing buzz. Prove that your services are respectful of the environment and you will have an instant customer base. But while the respectful products of the earth have been around for years, c 'was a 1989The telegraph of the day history that the term "ecological" has made its debut. "The only way the ecological products will take off is for them to be presented by manufacturers and retailers as a high technology and modern," wrote the author.
18 Glass ceiling
There is some disagreement on whether "glass ceiling" was originally invented by lawyer diversityMarilyn Loden During a speech of 1978 or a British writerGay Bryant, which was cited in a 1984Adweek History saying: "The women have reached a point-I call him the glass ceiling. They are at the top of the direction of the middle and they stop and get stuck." Anyway, the term did not take off as long as the 80s.
19 Prozac
Before becoming widely known by the trade name "Prozac", this popular antidepressant has been simply called fluoxetine. It is only after the FDA approved the drug in 1987 thatProzac is bornAnd it was a term prepared by the Interbrand brand company (which also worked for the tastes of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo).
20 Yuppie
"A new term has been introduced in the American political lexicon",New York Times Announced in 1984. "It's" Yuppie ", which means young urban professional." This is a word that briefly disappeared from the favor but returned significantly in the new millennium. As a writer for the deceased nowDetails Noticed in 2006, "We are all Yuppies now."
21 Techno
The techno-used word to describe a kind of electronic dance music (EDM) -Can, or get you wince, either jumping at your feet, ready to lose yourself in music. The term is native to a scene that began in the mid-1980s in Belleville, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Artists likeJuan Atkins,Eddie Fowlkes,Kevin Saunderson, andDerrick May Created a style of EDM sounding (and felt) as it was the 22nd century.
22 Shopaholic
When you think about the word "Shopaholic", what is the first image that comes to mind? Have you immediately thought at the endprincess diana? Probably not, right? We have not been. But she was the original target of the "Shopaholic" label, being said by a history of 1984 in theWashington Post.
23 Spin doctors
No, we are not talking about the group that produced grabbing hits like "Small Miss can not be wrong." We intend to hear political doctors, public relations specialists who make even bad news lead to a positive press. Or, like theNew York Times In 1984, described in 1984 - the first known reference to Spin Physicians (they capitalized, as well as the band) - these "principal advisers of candidates" exist solely to "transmit a recipient rotation to routine release".
24 Suv
SUVs, or sports utility vehicle, has become a favorite for families and singles-friendly style. And everything started with the Jeep Cherokee, a model of 1984 a criticcalled "The original SUV", which has become so running in the following years that "you have barely noticed them".
25 Infomacial
The first real infoperacy occurred all the way from 1949, in prolonged marketing for a vitamix mixer that its inventor describes as "one of the most wonderful machines ever invented". But the infodables we know today did not exist before 1981, when the FCC officially raised the prohibition of advertisements for the duration of the program, making the late-night television for steak ginsu knives, the Thighmasters and psychic hotlines.