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The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

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DTP

(Science and Technology) see desk-top

4.9 dude...

dude

(Youth Culture)

In urban street slang (originally in the US): a person, a guy, one of the 'gang'. Often used as a form of address: friend, buddy.

Etymology: Dude is a slang word of unknown origin that was first used in the US in the 1880s to mean 'a dandy, a swell' or (as a Western cowboys' word) 'a city-dweller'. By the early

1970s it had been taken up in US Black English to mean 'a man, a cool guy or cat' (and later 'any person'), losing its original negative connotations.

History and Usage: This more general use of dude was popularized outside Black street slang through the blaxploitation films of the late seventies and, more particularly, through the explosion of hip hop during the eighties. Its spread into British English idiom, at least among

children, was finally ensured by repeated use among the Teenage Mutant Turtles and other US cartoon characters in comic strips, cartoons, and games.

Dudes like that, they're totally dialled in. They can earn a quarter of a million a year, serious coin.

Richard Rayner Los Angeles Without a Map (1988), p. 68

It is the teenage Bart who has caught the public's imagination. With his skateboard and, touchingly, his catapult, he is a match for anyone, not least because of his streetwise vocabulary. 'Yo, dude!' he says; 'Aye caramba!' and--most famously--'Eat my shorts!'

Independent 29 July 1990, p. 17

dumping noun (Environment)

The practice of disposing of radioactive or toxic waste by burying it in the ground, dropping or piping it into the oceans, or depositing it above ground in another country.

Etymology: A specialized use of the verbal noun dumping, which literally means 'throwing down in a heap'.

History and Usage: It was only in the late seventies that environmentalists began to expose the scale of dumping by all the industrialized nations over the previous decade and the environmental disasters that this could cause. Hazardous waste had been buried in landfill sites on which houses were later built, sent off to Third World countries desperate for revenue, and pumped into rivers and oceans. Dumping became a topical issue in the UK in the eighties first because of public resistance to plans to bury radioactive waste in British

landfill sites and later when the UK fell foul of European Community directives on clean beaches because of the large quantities of raw sewage being pumped out to sea from British shores.

Dumping increases the input of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus into the marine environment.

Steve Elsworth A Dictionary of the Environment (1990), p. 243

Waste trichloroethene probably gets into the tap water because of careless dumping.

Which? Aug. 1990, p. 433

Dutch house

(Music) (Youth Culture) see house

Dutching noun Also written dutching (Environment) (Lifestyle and Leisure)

In the jargon of the British food industry, the practice of sending substandard food intended for the UK market for irradiation in the Netherlands (or some other European country where irradiation is permitted) so as to mask any bacterial contamination before putting it on sale in British shops.

Etymology: Formed by making a 'verbal' noun from the adjective Dutch (since the irradiation is normally carried out in the Netherlands) and the suffix -ing; a similarly euphemistic expression for the same process is 'sending on a holiday to Holland'.

History and Usage: The practice of Dutching was exposed in a Thames television documentary in 1985, but it was not at that time given this name. Both the word and the practice became topical in 1989 during discussions of the proposed legalization of food irradiation. At a time when there was widespread public

concern over food-related illnesses, many people were shocked to discover that bad food was already being passed off as good in this way.

A dealer...talked about 'Dutching' to a Sunday Times reporter posing as a potential buyer. Asked if the prawns would pass health tests at a British port...: 'Well, they won't if they come into England directly. But if they went into Holland and Belgium, yes.'

Sunday Times 6 Aug. 1989, section 1, p. 3

See also irradiation

4.10 DVI

DVI

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

4.11 dweeb

dweeb noun (Youth Culture)

In North American slang: a contemptible or boring person, especially one who is studious, puny, or unfashionable; a 'nerd'.

Etymology: Of unknown origin; probably an invented word influenced by dwarf, weed, creep, etc.

History and Usage: The term has been in use since the early

eighties, and may have originated in US prep school slang. The corresponding adjective is dweeby.

Norman, a research dweeb with a rockabilly hairdo.

Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Ontario) 9 Nov. 1989, section C, p. 22

Nathan Hendrick, 9, is wonderfully nerdy as Leonard Digbee, a dweeb's dweeb whose only goal in life is to one-up Harriet.

Los Angeles Times 19 July 1990, p. 6

'These Val guys are totally gross. They think they're real, but you can tell they're Barneys.' She says 'dweeby types' often 'snog right up' to her when she's wearing her 'floss', or thong-back bikini.

Wall Street Journal 27 Sept. 1990, section A, p. 1

4.12 dynamize

dynamize transitive verb (Business World)

To increase the value of (a pension) by taking inflation into account in the calculations of final salary on which the pension is based; to calculate (final salary) by adding the value of inflation in successive years to a real salary some years before retirement. Such a pension or salary is dynamized; the calculation involved is dynamization.

Etymology: The verb to dynamize has been in use in financial contexts with the more general meaning 'make more dynamic or effective' since the seventies. The use in relation to pensions

is a specialization of this.

History and Usage: The dynamized pension is an approved way of avoiding the Inland Revenue's maximum allowable pension rule (that a pension may not be worth more than two-thirds of final salary) and dates from the late seventies.

Norwich Union...cannot dynamise the pension without the trustees' approval.

Daily Telegraph 14 Oct. 1989, p. 31

5.0E

5.1E°...

(Environment) (Lifestyle and Leisure) see E number

(Drugs) see Ecstasy

(Science and Technology) see electronic

5.2 earcon...

earcon (Science and Technology) see icon

Earth-friendly

(Environment) see -friendly

5.3 eco...

eco

adjective (Environment) see ecobelow

ecocombining form (Environment)

Part of the words ecology and ecological, widely used as the first element of compounds and blends which relate in some way (sometimes quite tenuously) to ecology, the environment (see environment°), or green issues. Hence as a free-standing adjective: ecological, environment-friendly.

Etymology: The first two syllables of ecology and ecological; in both words this part is ultimately derived from Greek oikos 'house' (ecology being, properly speaking, the study of the 'household' or community of organisms).

History and Usage: One of the most fashionable combining forms of the late eighties, ecohad already enjoyed a vogue in the

late sixties and early seventies, especially in US English. As a formative element of scientific terminology (for example in words like ecoclimate, ecosphere, ecospecies, ecosystem, and ecotype), it goes back to the twenties and thirties; scientists have also used it as a kind of shorthand for 'ecological and...' (for example in ecocultural, ecogenetic, ecogeographical, ecophysiological, etc.). The explosion of non-technical uses arises from the increasing influence of the green view of politics, and represents a shift in meaning which had also taken place in the use of the full forms ecology and ecological: ecoin these words can signify a range of different connections with 'the environment' or with environmental politics, but not usually (if ever) with the community of organisms studied by ecology proper. At the furthest extreme of this development are

the words in which ecois synonymous with environment-friendly (see -friendly) and often operates as a free-standing adjective

(see the quotations below).

Among the formations of the earlier vogue period were eco-activist, eco-catastrophe (or ecodisaster), and ecofreak (also called an eco-nut or eco-nutter). Many of these seventies formations betray a lack of sympathy with environmental action groups and others who were already campaigning against the destruction of the environment; the formations of the eighties and early nineties, on the other hand, tended to have much more positive connotations, as green politics became acceptable and even desirable. Some of the earlier forms were now telescoped into blends: eco-catastrophe, for example, became

eco-tastrophe. Many ad hoc formations using ecohave appeared in only one or two contexts (especially when it is used as a

type of adjective); a few of these are illustrated in the quotations below.

Among the more lasting ecowords (some originally formed by the environmental campaigners of the seventies, others new to the eighties or early nineties) are: eco-aware(ness); ecobabble

(see under -babble); ecocentric (and ecocentrism); ecoconsciousness; ecocrat; ecocrisis; ecodoom (and -doomster, -doomsterism); ecofeminism; eco-friendly; ecolabel(ling) (see also environmental); ecomania (sometimes called ecohysteria);

ecopolitics (also ecopolicy, ecopolitical); ecoraider; ecorefugee; ecosocialism (and ecosocialist); ecotage (also called ecoterrorism) and ecoteur (also an eco-guerrilla or ecoterrorist); ecotechnology (and ecotechnological); Ecotopian (as an adjective or noun, from Ecotopia, an ecologically ideal society or environmental Utopia); eco-tourism and eco-tourist.

Whew, the day certainly had a funny colour to it--a harp light, but livid, bilious, as if some knot of eco-scuzz still lingered in its lungs.

Martin Amis Money (1984), p. 43

Among the measures called for are...introduction of 'ecomark' labels for products that have little adverse effect on the environment.

Nature 25 May 1989, p. 242

Tom Cruise will wear a shock of bright green hair in his next movie, fighting such evil characters as Sly Sludge...in an effort to wipe out those 'eco-villains

who pollute the earth'.

Sunday Mail Magazine (Brisbane) 11 Feb. 1990, p. 42

Four eco-warriors risk their lives as Greenpeace attempts to prevent a ship dumping waste in the North Sea.

Sky Magazine Apr. 1990, p. 3

Oiling the wheels of eco progress.

Times Educational Supplement 11 May 1990, section A, p. 12

What scientists call an 'eco-tastrophe' [on Mount St Helen's] has witnessed a remarkable recovery by nature.

Guardian 18 May 1990, p. 12

Lex Silvester is no Crocodile Dundee, but dedicated to

eco-tourism, blending sightseeing with conservation.

The Times 2 June 1990, p. 29

The 'Eco house', in its own acre garden, will demonstrate how we can live in a more environmental friendly way with highly efficient insulation, solar heating, energy efficient appliances and organic gardening.

Natural World Spring/Summer 1990, p. 9

The Department of the Environment produced a useful discussion paper on eco-labelling back in August 1989, and after some lengthy consultation set up an Advisory Panel.

She Aug. 1990, p. 122

An overwhelming groundswell of support transformed Greenpeace from a daring but ragtag band of eco-guerrillas into the largest environmental organization in the world in barely over a decade.

New York Times Book Review 25 Nov. 1990, p. 14

As products with specious 'eco-friendly' claims multiply on store shelves, the need for substantiated product information has intensified.

Garbage Nov.-Dec. 1990, p. 17

ecobabble (Environment) see -babble

ecological

adjective (Environment)

Concerned with ecology or green issues; hence, environment-friendly, environmental.

Etymology: For etymology, see ecoand ecology.

History and Usage: Ecological has developed in very much the

same way as environmental during the past ten years, developing the sense 'concerned with environmental issues' in the seventies (see ecology below) and the more elliptical sense 'environment-friendly' in the early eighties.

It seems it can already be economical (though surely not ecological) to fly cargo to London for onward trucking to Paris and points east, and vice versa.

Guardian 19 June 1990, p. 15

ecology noun (Environment)

Conservation of the environment (see environment°); green politics. Often used attributively, in Ecology Party etc., in much the same sense as the adjectives environmental and green.

Etymology: A sense development of the noun ecology, which is formed on the Greek word oikos 'house', and originally referred only to the branch of biology which has to do with the 'household' or community of organisms and how they relate to their surroundings. Since it was the potential destruction of habitats (including the human one) that first focused political attention on green issues, ecology came to be used popularly to refer to the protection of the natural world from the effects of pollution.

History and Usage: The transformation of ecology from scientific study to political cause was foreseen by the writer Aldous Huxley in his paper The Politics of Ecology (1963), in which he wrote:

Ecology is the science of the mutual relations of organisms with their environment and with one another. Only when we get it into our collective head that the basic problem confronting twentieth-century man is an ecological problem will our politics become realistic...Do we propose to live on this planet in symbiotic harmony with our environment?

The word ecology was popular throughout the seventies as the ecology movement gained momentum. In the eighties, though, ecology has tended to be replaced in its attributive use by

green--the Ecology Party in the UK officially changed its name to the Green Party in 1985, for example--and by the environment elsewhere.

The strongest organised hesitation before socialism is perhaps the diverse movement variously identified as 'ecology' or 'the greens'.

New Socialist Sept. 1986, p. 36

The Polish Ecology Club was the second independent organisation to be established after Solidarity, and has several thousand members.

EuroBusiness June 1990, p. 14

economic and monetary union (Politics) see EMU°

Ecstasy noun Also written ecstasy or XTC (Drugs)

In the slang of drug users, the hallucinogenic designer drug methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, also known as Adam. Sometimes abbreviated to E (and used as a verb, in the sense 'to freak out on Ecstasy').

Etymology: The name refers to the extreme feelings of euphoria and general well-being which the drug induces in its users. The word ecstasy has been used in the sense of 'rapturous delight' since the sixteenth century; 'street chemists' in the eighties

have simply applied it in a more specialized and concrete sense.

History and Usage: It has been claimed that the drug was first made in the early years of this century as an appetite

suppressant and patented in 1914 by the pharmaceutical company Merck; according to the chemical literature it was first

synthesized in 1960 and did not become known as MDMA until the seventies. It was not until 1984, though, that it was made as a designer drug; by 1985 it had appeared on the streets in the US

and was being called Ecstasy or Adam. It soon acquired a reputation as a drug of the smart, wealthy set; it was Ecstasy that the media most associated with the introduction of acid house culture to the UK in 1988, claiming that the drug, in the

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