The Oxford Dictionary of New Words
.pdfMisuse Act (1990) was a formal attempt to limit the damage. The jargon of hackers (enthusiasts or criminals) has been called hackerspeak. A specialized form of hacking practised by youngsters involves breaking the software protection on computer games; this is also known as cracking.
If you want to keep your street cred in the hacking fraternity, you've got to have an introduction screen with stunning graphics, a message to all the other hacking groups saying 'Hi guys. We did it first,' and comments on how good the software protection was.
Guardian 27 July 1989, p. 25
Hacking uncovers design flaws and security deficiencies...We must rise to defend those endangered by the hacker witch-hunts.
Harper's Magazine Sept. 1989, p. 26
1988: Hacker Robert Morris releases a software virus that kayos 6,000 computer systems.
Life Fall 1989, p. 30
The cost of restoring a computer system which is hacked into can run into hundreds and thousands of pounds for investigating and rebuilding the system.
The Times 11 Oct. 1989, p. 2
hack-and-slash
adjectival phrase Also written hack'n'slash (Lifestyle and Leisure)
Of entertainment, especially role-playing and computer games: having combat and violence as its central theme, rather than logical thinking or problem-solving.
Etymology: So named because the idea is to hack and slash one's way to a successful conclusion.
History and Usage: A term from Dungeons and Dragons (where it
originally occurred in the form hack-and-slay). A game based on the idea of killing the enemy, or a person who likes this kind
of game, is known as a hack-and-slasher. Perhaps under the influence of the computer-game use, a film or video whose main theme is gratuitous violence may be called a hack-and-slash film or a hack-and-slasher (compare slasher).
Added another player: 'This is no hack-and-slash game. You win by creativity.'
Christian Science Monitor 9 Feb. 1981, p. 15
A pseudo-educational game...One for the kids, rather than the hack'n'slashers, wethinks.
CU Amiga Apr. 1990, p. 5
hackette noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)
In media slang, a female journalist. (Dismissive unless used by a fellow journalist.)
Etymology: Formed by adding the feminine suffix -ette (as in usherette, but which also often has patronising or pejorative connotations) to hack. As well as being a pejorative word for a writer (implying poor-quality writing produced to a deadline), hack is used among journalists as a positive term of solidarity for all those who work in in-house journalism.
History and Usage: A term coined by the British satirical paper Private Eye, apparently to describe Emma Soames, hackette remains a word particularly favoured by this source, although it has also appeared in a number of the more serious newspapers and has already found its way into fiction. It is principally a
British usage, but began to appear in US sources as well from about the middle of the eighties.
There are distinguished female professors..., television speakerenes, Fleet Street hackettes, and publishers.
Tim Heald Networks (1983), p. 167
One hackette...was ordered to ring up travel writer
Bruce Chatwin...and interrogate him.
Private Eye 3 Apr. 1987, p. 8
The worlds of newspapers and publishing are unbuttoned, and hackettes can wear pretty well anything.
The Times 11 May 1987, p. 12
half shell
(Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture) see Turtle
handbagging
noun (Politics)
In media slang, a forthright verbal attack or volley of criticism, usually delivered by a female politician (especially Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister 1979-90).
Etymology: Formed on the noun handbag; the metaphor intended is that of a verbal battering likened to being bashed about the
head by Mrs Thatcher's handbag. This picks up the imagery of comic strips, in which cantankerous women are sometimes shown beating another person (usually a young man) about the head with a handbag. There is also possibly an intentional pun on sandbagging, a term used figuratively for political bullying or criticism since the seventies.
History and Usage: The word arises from a remark made by a Conservative back-bencher in 1982. This was reported in the Economist as follows:
One of her less reverent backbenchers said of Mrs Thatcher recently that 'she can't look at a British institution without hitting it with her handbag'.
Treasury figures published last week show how good she has proved at handbagging the civil service.
The word became especially popular in the British press in the middle of the eighties--after Mrs Thatcher's often strident protests at EC gatherings and several disagreements with Cabinet ministers had gained her a reputation for such verbal batterings--and is presumably a temporary term in the language,
unless it comes to be applied widely to other female politicians. The verb handbag (from which the noun had arisen) and the adjective handbagging (describing this style of persuasion) also enjoyed a brief popularity in the media.
No one crosses Margaret Thatcher and gets away with it. And no one is too grand to escape the process of 'handbagging', which has been refined to an art under her premiership.
Independent 11 May 1987, p. 17
In the past, Neil Kinnock has been hand-bagged unmercifully, but he is now beginning to bowl her length.
Observer 22 Oct. 1989, p. 15
Mrs Thatcher has a 'handbagging attitude to German reunification.'
Daily Telegraph 27 Feb. 1990, p. 16
hands-on adjective (Business World) (Science and Technology)
Involving direct participation; practical rather than theoretical. Also used of a person: having or willing to gain practical experience.
Etymology: Formed on the verbal phrase to get one's hands on (something) 'to touch or get involved in' and influenced by the exclamation hands off! 'do not touch or interfere!'
History and Usage: Hands-on was first used as an adjective in relation to computer training in the late sixties, when opportunities to learn computing by sitting down at the keyboard and actually using the computer were described as hands-on experience. Throughout the seventies this was the dominant sense of the adjective, although towards the end of the decade a
number of new applications were beginning to develop: people who had practical experience, or jobs which required it, could now
be described as hands-on, and the metaphor was taken up in a more literal way by museums devoted to experiential learning,
where visitors were encouraged to handle and use the exhibits. It was also at the end of the seventies that hands-on came to be
used figuratively in hands-on management, a style of management in which executives are expected to get involved in the business at all levels, including the production process itself. (The
opposite policy, in which managers interfere as little as
possible and give their subordinates maximum room for manoeuvre, is called hands-off management.) During the eighties hands-on
has been applied in a wide variety of different contexts to direct, practical participation.
The sucessful candidate will have a solid record of achievement in 'hands-on' management established over several years experience.
Wanganui Chronicle (New Zealand) 19 Feb. 1986, p. 10
Reactor operators are denied hands-on control until they have proved their competence in a simulator. Just as pilots make their first mistakes firmly fixed to the ground, reactor staff are brought up to standard without the risk of accidentally plunging the world into Armageddon.
Guardian 3 Aug. 1989, p. 27
Zapata, who has been working in the business since she was a teenager, is the hands-on administrator of operations at Dawn.
Delaware Today July 1990, p. 56
happening adjective (Lifestyle and Leisure)
In young people's slang: trendy, up-to-the-minute, 'hip', that is 'where the action is'.
Etymology: Formed by shortening the phrase what's happening or where it's (all) happening and treating happening as an
adjective. During the teenage revolution of the sixties, the
noun happening was widely used to mean any fashionable event, especially a pop gathering, and happenings is a slang name for narcotics; the phrase what's happening? is a popular street
greeting among US teenagers, perhaps originating in the language of jazz.
History and Usage: One of the happening words of the late eighties, happening as an adjective started in California in the late seventies; in her pastiche of Californian life The Serial (1977), American writer Cyra McFadden makes one of her characters say:
Who could live anywhere else? Marin's this whole high-energy trip with all these happening people...Can you imagine spending your life out there in the wasteland someplace?
The word then became enshrined in Valspeak in the early eighties, and eventually emerged in the pop and rock music world generally around the middle of the decade. In the UK it is still used mainly in writing for young people, but has also started to crop up in fashionable magazines and newspaper colour supplements.
'Me and George Michael,' she adds, lapsing into pop-speak, 'may turn out to be a pretty happening scene.'
Sunday Express Magazine 1 Feb. 1987, p. 13
Nothing looks sadder than a man wearing voluminous, 'happening' dungarees but with a bemoussed hairstyle that is pure Bros.
Weekend Guardian 21 Apr. 1990, p. 25
Manchester is this year's happening place.
Sunday Times Magazine 6 May 1990, p. 36
hard card (Science and Technology) see cardý
hard lens (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Science and Technology) see lens
8.2 headbanger...
headbanger°
noun Also written head banger or head-banger (Music) (Youth Culture)
In rock music slang: a follower of heavy metal rock music; a person who enjoys a style of dancing to rock music involving
head-shaking and rapid bending movements (known as headbanging).
Etymology: Formed on headbanging, which in turn is a descriptive name for the dance; the rapid bending and head-shaking look rather like a mime of banging one's head against a hard surface (and in fact there is some suggestion that the early followers of heavy metal actually did bang their
heads against the amplifiers). There is also some confusion with the headbanging of the mentally disturbed: see headbangerý below.
History and Usage: The term arose in the rock music context in the second half of the seventies, when heavy metal first attracted a large following. Although originally a dismissive nickname, headbanger has been adopted by some of the fans themselves, who use headbanging to refer to listening to live rock music generally. Headbanging is also occasionally used as an adjective.
Head bangers can find companionship in the mass suppression of individuality that is a heavy metal concert.
Independent 28 Nov. 1988, p. 14
Only head-banging heavy metal groups such as Metallica and Guns'n'Roses serve the primary function of rock.
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 27 May 1989, section D, p. 5
Headbangers get a chance. We have a fantastic competition for all you heavy metal fans out there...Ten lucky readers will win a double pass to see Skid Row.
Sun (Brisbane) 23 Apr. 1990, p. 4
headbangerý
noun Also written head banger or head-banger (Politics) (Youth Culture)
In young people's slang: a deranged or stupid person; a lunatic or idiot. Hence in political contexts: a person with very
extreme political views; someone whose ideas and policies seem 'over the top' (see OTT).
Etymology: Adopted from psychological jargon, in which a headbanger is a child who engages in rhythmic rocking and banging its head against the cot or walls as a comfort mechanism (often as a sign of boredom, neglect, or stress), or an adult
who is severely disturbed and shows stress by engaging in similar activity. As a young people's term of abuse it relies more on stereotyped notions of the behaviour of 'lunatics' than on knowledge of psychology.
History and Usage: Long in spoken use (especially, it seems, in Glasgow) as a general term of abuse, headbanger has acquired a wider currency in the late seventies and eighties as a result of its use in the newspapers to refer to extremist politicians of
the Left and the Right. Headbanging in this sense means any militant political extremism.
If he was to resign from Monday morning's interview...It was a while since he had been carpeted...Old Milne was a bit of a headbanger but apart from that.
James Kelman Disaffection (1989), p. 84
Other drivers spoke about a 'headbanger' and the driving as 'absolute madness'.
The Times 6 Feb. 1989, p. 43
The Tories were always disliked by Christian Democrats for their selfishness and their mindless complacency. In the European Parliament, they sit alone with a few Spanish and Danish head-bangers, while the main conservative grouping excludes them.
Observer 19 Feb. 1989, p. 13
headhunt transitive verb Also written head-hunt (Business World)
To approach (a manager or other skilled employee who already has a job) with a view to persuading him or her to join another company in which a vacancy has arisen, especially when this approach is made by an agent or agency (a headhunter) specifically employed for this purpose by the company seeking staff. Also as an intransitive verb: to act as a headhunter; to engage in the process of executive recruitment known as headhunting.
Etymology: The verb is back-formed from the action noun headhunting; this in turn is a case of a derisive nickname for the practice (also labelled body-snatching or poaching) which eventually became a semi-official term in business circles, losing even its metaphorical association with primitive peoples and the taking of heads as trophies.
History and Usage: Headhunting originated in the US (the practice in the fifties, the name in the second half of the sixties), but was not at all widespread in the UK until the eighties, the term headhunter remaining a derisive slang term until then. Headhunt as a verb has a similar history--first used in the sixties, but entering a rather different register of usage after the early eighties. During the eighties it became
common for senior executives who were unhappy in their jobs to offer their services to headhunters, so that the agency's job included finding jobs for individuals as well as individuals for jobs.
He interviewed several people for the position but he did not find anyone suitable. Head-hunting seemed to be the next move.
Jeffrey Archer First Among Equals (1984), p. 223
At 45, Peter Birch brought the average age of building society chiefs down by a good few years. Worse, he had not been born and bred in the 'movement', but was headhunted from outside.
Money & Family Wealth Mar. 1989, p. 25
I can't afford an unemployed husband, and there isn't a headhunter in New York who'll talk to Wilder after one look at his curriculum vitae and his job record.
Saul Bellow A Theft (1989), p. 6
hearing-impaired
(Health and Fitness) (People and Society) see deafened
heavy metal
noun and adjective (Music) (Youth Culture)
A style of loud, vigorous rock music characterized by the use of heavily amplified instruments (typically guitar, bass, and drums), a strong (usually fast) beat, intense or spectacular performance, and often a clashing, harsh musical style; a later development of 'hard' rock. Often used as an adjectival phrase to describe music of this kind. Sometimes abbreviated to HM or metal.
Etymology: Both metal and heavy metal were used in William Burroughs's novel Nova Express in 1964:
At this point we got a real break in the form of a defector from The Nova Mob: Uranian Willy The Heavy Metal Kid.
The phrase was probably more influential when used again in Steppenwolf's record Born to be Wild in 1968, referring to the culture of the biker:
I like smoke and lightning, Heavy metal thunder.
In addition to the conscious quotation from these sources, the name may well be influenced by the harsh, metallic sound of the music and its heavy beat, or even by the leather gear with metal studs typically worn by heavy metal bands and their followers.
History and Usage: The term heavy metal was first used to refer to rock music by the music press of the mid seventies, seeking a dismissive label for what was otherwise known as hard rock.
Gradually, though, heavy metal acquired a respectable status as