There's a Word for It: The Explosion of the American Language Since 1900

By Sol Steinmetz

Observe geeks (1984), have fun! Crack open those covers and immerse your self in a mind-expanding (1963) compendium of the recent phrases (or new meanings of phrases) that experience sprung from American existence to ignite the main important, creative, fruitful, and A-OK (1961) lexicographical immense Bang (1950) because the first no-brow (1922) Neanderthal grunted meaningfully.

From the flip of the 20th century to this present day, our language has grown from round 90,000 new phrases to a couple 500,000—at least, that’s today’s top guesstimate (1936). What money owed for this quantum bounce (1924)? In There’s a note for It, language professional Sol Steinmetz takes us on a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (1949) joyride (1908) via our nation’s cultural heritage, as visible during the neato (1951) phrases and phrases we’ve invented to explain all of it. From the quaintly genteel days of the 1900s (when we first heard phrases akin to nickelodeon, escalator, and, think it or no longer, Ms.) in the course of the Roaring Twenties (the time of flappers, jalopies, and bootleg booze) to the postwar ’50s (the years of rock ’n’ roll, beatniks, and blast-offs) and into the hot millennium (with its blogs, Google, and Obamamania), this banquet for note fanatics is a boffo (1934) get together of linguistic esoterica (1929).

In chapters geared up by means of decade, every one with a full of life and informative narrative of the lifestyles and language of the time, in addition to year-by-year lists of phrases that have been making their first visual appeal, There’s a observe for It reveals how the yankee tradition contributed to the evolution and enlargement of the English language and vice versa. sincerely, it’s must-reading (1940). and never to disparage any of the umpteen (1918) different language books at the shelf—though they've got their percentage of hokum (1917) and gobbledygook (1944)—but this one really is the bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas (1920s).

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Paralinguistics, peace image, pentatonicism, people-watching, phase-out, photoset, decide ’n’ combine, planeful, polymerase, polyoma, preactivate, prequel, pretape (v. ), psilocybin, quads (muscles), rhubarb (v. ), recusal, ribosome, Rolf (massage), sched, scintillogram, self-medicate, send-up, sensor, serendipitous, situationist, Skinnerian, delicate touchdown, sonicate, souvlaki, Sovietology, stereophonics, summitry, suppressant, tandoori, thalidomide, unflappable, victimology, Viet, visagiste 1959 academese, actorly, Algol (programming language), Barbie, balls-out, beat poet(ry), binge consuming, boo, campy, CB radio, chad, charbroil (v. ), circadian, clone (v. ), codswallop, colorectal, laptop technology, co-pay (n. ), cosmonaut, counterproductive, country-and-western (music), dopamine, down-and-dirty, dreamscape, Efta (European loose exchange Association), ekistics, email correspondence, Euramerican, fantabulous, Fidelism, floatel, go-kart, Grammy, hash, hovercraft, immunoglobulin, innumeracy (-ate), isozyme, kooky, Lamaze, lepidoptery, logophile, Lolita, macro, magnetosphere, mass-market (v. ), match-up, microcircuit(ry), microelectronics, microminiaturize, modacrylic, monstre sacré, motelier, multiprogramming, muscledom, Nabokovian, Nardil, neatnik, neocolonialist, nouveau roman, nouvelle imprecise, Nowheresville, numeracy (-ate), nutcase, OD (= overdose), off-off-off-Broadway, ofuro, omnicide, one-upman, optoelectronics, pantyhose, computer, phenotype (v. ), pheromone, photoscanner, planification, plugola, powerlifting, prefab (v. ), privatization, programmable, (computer) programming language, pseudocide, psychoactive, reovirus, reusable, rifamycin, rotavate, saketini, schussboomer, Seyfert (galaxy), sheesh (interj. ), shrink-wrapping, Spandex, spin-off, stir-fry, supremacist, Tantricism, tensegrity, teratogen, tetrathlon, ufology, Uzi, Van Allen (belt), vexillology, virion, washeteria, Wicca, zendo, zonked bankruptcy 7 The Turbulent Sixties: 1960–1969 The Nineteen Sixties have been years of social unrest and turmoil that completely remodeled American society. but the last decade started on an confident be aware. within the phrases of Joan and Robert ok. Morrison, authors of an anthology in regards to the Sixties, From Camelot to Kent nation (1987): “The Decade all started, with a bit of luck sufficient, with the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency. At his inauguration he known as upon american citizens to ‘ask no longer what your kingdom can do for you, ask quite what you are able to do to your state. ’… We have been going to visit the moon. We have been going to finish poverty. the humanities might flourish. ” that point and position of glamorous doings was once to be largely and romantically often called Camelot, an allusion to King Arthur’s court docket. teens flocked idealistically to hitch the Peace Corps, which was once confirmed in 1961, or VISTA (Volunteers in carrier to America), the 1964 household counterpart of the Peace Corps, or to play an element in President Kennedy’s family and overseas software, promisingly known as the recent Frontier. Setbacks begun early within the decade.

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