The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

Blue Heat promisingly pits Brian Dennehy's blue-collar cop against Contragate corruption in high places.

The Face Oct. 1990, p. 21

gay plague, gay-related immune disease (Health and Fitness) see Aids

gazunder transitive or intransitive verb (Lifestyle and Leisure)

In UK slang, of a house buyer: to reduce the price offered to (the seller of a property) at a late stage in the proceedings, usually immediately before contracts are due to be exchanged; to

behave in this way over a house purchase. Also as an action noun gazundering; agent noun gazunderer.

Etymology: Formed by altering the word gazump 'to swindle, especially in the sale of a house, by raising the asking price'; in the case of gazunder, the tables are turned so that it is the buyer rather than the seller who is in a position to do the swindling. Since the buyer comes in with a price under the one previously offered, the word under replaces the -ump part of gazump.

History and Usage: It was the slowing down and eventual fall of house prices in the UK in the late eighties, after the boom of

the rest of the decade, that turned the housing market into a buyers' market in which the phenomenon of gazundering could arise. No doubt the practice existed without a name for a time; the first mentions of gazunder, gazunderers, and gazundering in the press, though, date from late 1988, cropping up first in the tabloid press and later in the 'quality' papers as well.

The gazunderer goes along with the asking price until days or even hours before contracts are due to be exchanged. Then he threatens to withdraw.

Daily Mirror 18 Nov. 1988, p. 4

Media executive Matthew Levin, 44, and his psychotherapist wife Vivienne have just been gazundered in Hampstead.

A luxurious exfoliating gel has been launched by

Christian Dior.

Sunday Express Magazine 17 Sept. 1989, p. 3

Don't use harsh soaps and shower gels on winter skin--use a cleansing bar.

Health Shopper Jan./Feb. 1990, p. 4

genco noun (Business World)

A power-generating company; especially, either of the two electricity-generating wholesalers set up to sell electricity in England and Wales.

Etymology: Formed by combining the first syllable of generating with co (the abbreviated form of company), as in disco.

History and Usage: The first gencos were set up in the US in the early eighties. The idea of splitting the electricity

industry in the UK into generation and supply is a central tenet of the privatization strategy worked out by the government in the closing years of the eighties; the two English gencos,

National Power and Powergen, are meant to introduce competition into power generation and were privatized in 1991.

If regulators approve the move, the utility would be the first to split into two independent electric-power subsidiaries: a wholesale power generating unit ('genco') that could sell any surplus power it produces to users outside its current turf, and a retail distribution unit ('disco') that would own the power lines and move the product.

Financial World 5 Jan. 1988, p. 48

gene therapy

noun (Health and Fitness) (Science and Technology)

The technique or process of introducing normal genes into cells in place of defective or missing ones in order to correct

genetic disorders.

Etymology: Formed by compounding: therapy which takes place at the level of the gene.

History and Usage: Researchers in medical genetics have been working on the idea of gene therapy since the early seventies and during the eighties were approaching a point where their techniques could be applied to human subjects, although most sources spoke of gene therapy very much as a hope for the future rather than a practical reality. Since all forms of transgenic research and genetic engineering raise serious ethical issues which have had to be considered by the courts, gene therapy could not develop as fast as its inventors would like. Approval for the first real gene therapy on human subjects was given in the US in 1990.

Researchers were predicting that common disorders of the red blood cells, such as thalassaemia, would be the

first diseases cured by gene therapy.

Listener 9 May 1985, p. 7

This sort of research, which critics describe as 'playing God', gets even more morally knotty when it

comes to gene therapy, with its potential for monitoring and altering human genes to check for and eliminate hereditary diseases.

The Face June 1990, p. 111

genetic engineering

noun (Health and Fitness) (Science and Technology)

The deliberate modification of a living thing by manipulation of its DNA.

Etymology: A straightforward combination of genetic with engineering in its more general sense of 'the application of science to design etc.'.

History and Usage: The techniques of genetic engineering were developed during the late sixties and seventies and contributed significantly to the boom in biotechnology during the eighties

when applied to industrial processes. There was concern about the possible ecological effects of releasing genetically engineered organisms (such as plants resistant to crop diseases, frost damage, etc.) into the environment, but this was allowed under licence in the UK from 1989 onwards. Applications of genetic engineering to human DNA have proved even more problematical because of the ethical implications of altering genetic make-up; in the UK, measures to control experiments involving genetic engineering on human tissue were added to the Health and Safety Act in 1989.

We are in the process now of bioengineering the world's agroscape. This means moving around the players as well as making new ones through genetic engineering.

Conservation Biology Dec. 1988, p. 309

Genetic engineering is often presented as producing unnatural hybrids which have no counterparts in the wild. It feeds on people's notions that there is a

harmony or wisdom in nature with which we tamper at our peril, even though alongside that people want their

videos and their modern medicines and all the other things that science brings by tampering with nature.

Guardian 6 July 1989, p. 19

genetic fingerprinting

noun (People and Society) (Science and Technology)

The analysis of genetic information from a blood sample or other small piece of human material as an aid to the identification of

a person.

Etymology: Formed by combining genetic with fingerprinting in a figurative sense; the genetic fingerprint produced by this technique is as accurate in uniquely identifying a person as an actual fingerprint would be.

History and Usage: Genetic fingerprinting was developed in the late seventies and early eighties and was first widely

publicized in the mid eighties. The technique (also known as DNA fingerprinting) has a number of applications: it has

revolutionized forensic science in the eighties, for example. A sample of blood, semen, etc. or a few flakes of skin left at the scene of a crime can be analysed for the unique pattern of repeated DNA sequences that it displays (its genetic fingerprint) and this can be matched with blood samples taken

from suspects. The first murder case to be decided on the basis of genetic fingerprinting was heard in 1987, but in 1989 a number of cases cast doubt on the reliability of forensic evidence based entirely on this kind of DNA testing. Another quite separate application of genetic fingerprinting is in the matching of blood samples in paternity suits or cases of 'disappeared' children (see desaparecido), since the genetic fingerprint can be used to establish whether two people could be related to one another. A slightly more refined process, known as genetic profiling, provides a genetic profile, or list of all

of a person's genetic characteristics.

Forensic scientists can also use genetic traits found in blood and other tissues to identify bodies. Sometimes known as genetic fingerprints, these include about 70 inherited enzymes that can be used in a form of extraordinarily detailed blood typing.

New York Times 8 July 1985, section A, p. 3

Genetic profiles are much more sensitive than genetic fingerprints because they give accurate answers based on much smaller samples.

Observer 26 Feb. 1989, p. 8

Now the baby has been born and blood tests and 'genetic fingerprinting' have proved conclusively that Howitt was not the father.

Private Eye 1 Sept. 1989, p. 6

gentrification

noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)

The conversion of something with humble origins (especially a housing area) into something respectable or middle-class; taking up-market.

In colloquial use in the UK: a cheque or money order issued through the giro system; specifically, a girocheque in payment of social security benefit.

Etymology: Shortened from girocheque; the word giro itself, which originally referred to the system for transferring money between banks, post offices, etc., was borrowed from Italian giro 'circulation, tour' in the late nineteenth century.

History and Usage: The colloquial form has been in use since the late seventies or early eighties. The erosion of benefits during the eighties meant that the arrival of the weekly giro became a more crucial event than ever for many claimants, a fact that has apparently led to the formation of a derivative

girocracy for the under-class of people who depend on their giro for survival, although there is little sign that this derivative

will become established.

'That my lager?' he inquired, feeling mean even as he uttered the question. 'Yeah, d'you mind?' said Raymond. 'I'll replace it when I get me next giro.'

David Lodge Nice Work (1988), p. 117

7.5 G-Jo

7.6 glam...

A policy of freedom of information and publicly accountable, consultative government introduced in the Soviet Union in 1985.

Etymology: A direct borrowing from Russian glasnost', literally 'publicness', which in turn is formed from glasnyy 'public,