The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

terrorist attacks in which explosives were used. During the course of the eighties device seems to have become an established synonym for bomb in news reports.

After sprinkling them with an unidentified liquid, an explosive charge was put on top of the human pile. The device detonated as planned.

Washington Post 3 Jan. 1981, section A, p. 1

February 24: A device pushed through a letter box wrecked an army careers office in Halifax, West Yorkshire.

Guardian 11 June 1990, p. 2

4.5 diddy goth...

diddy goth

(Youth Culture) see goth

dideoxyinosine

(Health and Fitness) see ddI

dietary fibre

(Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure) see fibre

differently abled

(People and Society) see abled

digital adjective (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Science and Technology)

(Of a recording) made by digitizing, or turning information about sound into a code of numerical values or digits, and storing this.

Etymology: A straightforward development of the adjective digital in the computing sense 'operating on data in the form of digits'; first the method of recording was described as digital, and then the adjective was also applied to a recording or piece of music reproduced in this way.

History and Usage: The technology for digital recording was developed as early as the sixties, but it was not until the late seventies that the first digital discs became commercially available. The sound information that is stored includes millions of coded pulses per second; until the advent of the CD there was no suitable medium for this mass of information. This method of recording is considerably more faithful to the original sound than analogue recording (the audio method previously used) and the recording does not deteriorate so quickly; as a result, digital recording has more or less taken over the classical market (where fidelity of sound is especially important) and is also widely used for popular music. The process of translating a signal into coded pulses is called digitization (or digitalization); older analogue recordings are often re-recorded using the digital technique and are then described as digitally remastered.

The performances could hardly be more authentic, with magnificent playing and an ample resonance in this fine digital recording.

Sunday Times 14 Oct. 1984, p. 40

In their day (1957-59) these recordings stood as superior examples of the conducting and engineering art.

They sound even more impressive today in RCA's digitally remastered version.

Colloquially, either partner of a career couple with no

children, both of whom have an income from work and who are therefore viewed as affluent consumers with few drains on their resources.

Etymology: Formed on the initial letters of Double (or Dual ) Income No Kids; in the variant forms Dinkie or Dinky, the diminutive suffix -ie, -y is added in imitation of yuppie,

although Dinky is sometimes explained as Double Income No Kids Yet.

History and Usage: DINK is one of a line of humorous terms (often acronyms) for social groupings that followed in the wake of the successful yuppie in the mid eighties. It owes its existence to the trend analysts and marketing executives of the

US and Canada, who in 1986 identified and targeted this group as an increasingly important section of the American market. Typically, the partners in a DINK couple are educated to a high level and each is committed to a high-paid career; the social trend underlying the coinage is that women with high educational qualifications tend to have fewer children, and to have them

later in their careers than was previously the case. For two or three years, DINK appeared to be almost as successful a coinage as yuppie (despite its confusability with the US slang word dink 'penis', also used as a personal term of abuse); derivatives included dinkdom and the adjective undink (not characteristic of a DINK). Less successful variants on the theme, such as OINK (One Income No Kids), Nilkie (No Income Lots of Kids), and

Tinkie (Two Incomes, Nanny and Kids) came and went during 1987. A later attempt was SITCOM (Single Income, Two (K)ids, Outrageous Mortgage), which appeared in 1989, but this also

failed to make much impression.

These speedy high-rollers are upper-crust DINKs...They flourish in the pricier suburbs as well as in gentrified urban neighborhoods.

Time 20 Apr. 1987, p. 45

The wolf is looming through the smoked-glass door even for many hard-working Dinkie...couples.

The Times 2 May 1990, p. 10

direct broadcasting by satellite

(Lifestyle and Leisure) (Science and Technology) see satellite

disco noun Also written distco (Business World)

A power-distribution company; any of the twelve regional companies set up in 1989 to distribute electricity in England and Wales.

Etymology: Formed by combining the first syllable of distribution with co, a long-established abbreviation of company which had already been used as a suffix in company and brand names (for example, Woolco for a Woolworths brand).

History and Usage: Disco was used in company names in the US before becoming topical in the UK because of the government's reorganization of the electricity supply in the late eighties

and their plans to sell off the discos as part of their privatization strategy. Distco seems to be the officially preferred form, although disco is commoner in the newspapers (despite confusability with the musical disco). The sale of the distribution companies took place in 1990.

It is argued that smaller distcos, such as Manweb and South Wales, will have lower growth prospects to push down costs.

Observer 18 Mar. 1990, p. 57

The discos have much better growth prospects than the water companies, while the gencos generate a unique 'fuel'.

Daily Telegraph 25 July 1990, p. 23

Lloyds pitched for the business of arranging the loans...for three discos, with two of whom it already enjoyed a relationship as a clearing bank.

Daily Telegraph 17 Aug. 1990, p. 17

See also genco

disco-funk

(Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture) see funk

scientific inspectors doorstepping laboratories around the world.

New Scientist 4 Aug. 1988, p. 31

Hard News...will doorstep editors and reporters, if necessary, to get a reply.

Independent 5 Apr. 1989, p. 17

double zero option (Politics) see zero

doughnutting

noun Also written donutting (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Politics)

In television jargon, the clustering of politicians round a speaker during a televised parliamentary debate so as to fill the shot and make the speaker appear well supported.

Etymology: Formed by adding the suffix -ing to doughnut--presumably alluding to the ring shape of some doughnuts as resembling the ring of supporters, or to the jam in the middle as representing the speaker, surrounded by the apparently substantial dough of his support.

History and Usage: The word is often said to have been used in connection with the first televised debates from the federal parliament in Ottawa, but Canadian newspaper reports of the time do not bear this out (describing the practice, but not using the word). When the British parliament began to be televised, and particularly when House of Commons debates first appeared on TV screens in 1989, the word enjoyed a brief vogue in the press

amid speculation that members would attempt to fill the seats immediately behind the speaker so as to make the chamber appear full, even when in fact a debate had attracted only a handful of MPs. Its use in popular sources promises to be shortlived.

Mr Kirkwood did have a little ring of fellow-Liberals around him. But this practice of 'doughnutting', as Canadian parliamentarians call it, exhausts the nutters more than it fools the viewers.