A Word a Year: 1905-2005
In the following extract from fanboys and overdogs, Susie Dent selects a single word to represent each of the last hundred years. Can you guess what the word of the year for 2005 is?
A survey of a century's worth of new words is as surprising as it is revealing. Language has the ability to reinvent itself as circumstances require, and many of the words we consider wholly modern have in fact been resurrected from an earlier era.
The following chronology selects a single word for each year in the last hundred. Not all of them bear heavy historical significance, but each captures something of the cultural vibrancy of the year in which it was coined.
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1905 peace economy 1906 tyrannosaurus 1907 Boy Scout 1908 Dow Jones 1909 jazz 1910 wimmin 1911 flight-path 1912 rinky-dink 1913 migrant labor 1914 crossword 1915 trench fever 1916 blimp 1917 triple vaccine 1918 D-day 1919 white collar (adjective) 1920 new poor 1921 quantum energy 1922 yobbo 1923 environmentalism 1924 nuclear family 1925 blind date 1926 haute cuisine 1927 national lottery 1928 boogie-woogie 1929 Wall Street Crash 1930 Intelligence Service 1931 Filofax 1932 brown shirt: a Nazi 1933 supermarket 1934 supernova 1935 boondoggle: a trivial undertaking 1936 bingo |
1937 spam 1938 private eye 1939 tickety-boo 1940 Jim Crow: a rooftop spotter of enemy aircraft. 1941 daisy-chainer 1942 zoot suit 1943 Laundromat 1944 boot camp 1945 cold war 1946 Gulag 1947 pop single 1948 cappuccino 1949 aromatherapy 1950 McCarthyism 1951 fast food 1952 spycatcher 1953 UFO 1954 double helix 1955 tikka 1956 tax-and-spend 1957 the Pill 1958 sex kitten 1959 Barbie 1960 rave (noun) 1961 game show 1962 bossa nova 1963 machine-washable 1964 disco 1965 nanny state 1966 center fold 1967 sleaze 1968 Klingon 1969 moonwalk 1970 Third World |
1971 gonzo 1972 dole queue 1973 deconstruct 1974 baby boomer 1975 refusenik 1976 Thatcherite 1977 makeover 1978 me generation 1979 nouvelle cuisine 1980 Reaganomics 1981 street cred 1982 Valspeak: short for 'Valley Speak' 1983 theme pub 1984 body-popping 1985 Prozac 1986 to multitask 1987 smiley 1988 vogueing 1989 luvvly jubbly 1990 smackdown 1991 hotdesking 1992 poptastic 1993 fashionista 1994 dotcom 1995 ladette 1996 alcopop 1997 blamestorming 1998 text message 1999 ASBO 2000 speed dating 2001 war on terror 2002 SARS 2003 freedom fries: an alternative term for 'French fries', chosen by some Americans as a critique of the French protest against the invasion of Iraq. 2004 podcasting 2005 su doku |