by Terry Watada
Last month, I looked at words coined during the Nisei and the beginning of the Sansei era. This month, let’s look at the Sansei era proper and the Yonsei era with the help of the OED Birthday Generator.
1960 bouffy (as in bouffant hairdo, now that’s a word for its time)
1961 chocoholic
1962 blag (a tall story or bluff)
1963 cyberculture
1964 Beatlesque (still with us today)
1965 bada-bing (the Sopranos live)
1966 computernik
1967 mockney (this is Beatlesque)
1968 gasp
1969 megastar (must be related to superstar)
Other words of the 1960s: in-joke, foodaholic, expat, people-watch
1970 laugh-out-loud
1971 reboot
1972 guilt trip
1973 recyclist (the recycling movement begins)
1974 internet
1975 brainiac
1976 punkster or punk rock
(Sid Vicious becomes prominent)
1977 nip & tuck (cosmetic surgery becomes a fad)
1978 gazillion
1979 bagsy (to claim something for yourself)
Other words of the 1970s: Bollywood,
Monty Pythonesque, number crunch
1980 foodie (rise of the Food Channel)
1981 chill pill
1982 downloadable
1983 air guitar (also an odd Japanese TV show)
1984 shopaholic
1985 gobsmacked
1986 channel surf
1987 bazillionaire
1988 beatbox
1989 crowd-surfing
Other words of the 1980s: smartphone, spell-check, road rage, ecotourism
1990 emoticon
1991 nu skool (styles of popular music)
1992 popstastic
1993 geeksville
1994 Dad rock (better term than what my son calls “my music” – dino or
prehistoric-rock)
1995 scratchiti (form of graffiti)
1996 gastropub
1997 muggle (really, Harry
Potter made it into the lexicon?)
1998 hactivism
1999 bling (this one is really tired)
Other words of the 1990s: auto-complete, cybercafé, bridezilla, dotcom, fashionista, wiki
As I said last month, these are not the only words coined that year or decade, but they seem the most popular. Many of the words listed have not survived or will in time, but then that’s the nature of language. They are an indicator of the culture at that moment. Whatever happened to the “beat or boom box” for example? Who would’ve predicted the geek would last until today, especially with a positive connotation given its initial meaning?
For words of the 2000s (the Yonsei era proper and the Gosei era), you can look them up at the OED Birthday Generator website. Just google it.
