The Oxford Dictionary of New Words
.pdfmore doubt upon the matter.
The Times 17 Oct. 1988, p. 21
hip hop noun, adjective, and verb Sometimes written hip-hop or Hip-Hop (Music) (Youth Culture)
noun: A street subculture (originally among urban teenagers in the US) which combines rap music, graffiti art, and break-dancing with distinctive codes of dress and speech; more specifically, the dance music of this subculture, which features rap (frequently on political themes) delivered above spare electronic backing, and harsh rhythm tracks.
adjective: Belonging to hip-hop culture or its music.
intransitive verb: To dance to hip-hop music.
Etymology: Formed by combining the adjective hip in its slang sense 'cool' with the noun hop, which also had a well-established slang sense 'dance'; hip-hop had existed as an adverb meaning 'with hopping movements' since the seventeenth century, but hip hop as a noun was a quite separate development. Its adoption as the name of the subculture and its music may have been influenced by the rap-funk catch-phrase hip hop, be bop, chanted by the disc jockey and rapper Lovebug Starsky in the form 'to the hip hop, hip hop, don't stop that body rock'.
History and Usage: Hip hop originated among young Blacks and Hispanics in New York in the second half of the seventies but was first widely publicized at about the same time as break-dancing in 1982 or 1983. At first the name was used to refer to the assertive and showy culture as a whole, with its visible and flamboyant street manifestations; it was the music which was imported to other cultures, though, and in the UK the word has been used mainly to refer specifically to this since it became popular in British clubs in about 1986. Its popularity as
a dance music has led to the development of the verb hip hop and the action noun hip hopping; someone who listens or dances to the music or follows the culture in general is a hip hopper.
Like breakdancing, rap and hip hop in general flourished at street level despite overexposure in too many
'breaksploitation' films and a virtual end to exposure in the media.
Washington Post 30 Dec. 1984, section K, p. 5
Those hip to the beat cats down at Streetsounds bring you the biggest and freshest names in American hip hop.
City Limits 12 June 1986, p. 89
The look is squeaky clean. In its simplest form, the hip-hopper's kit consists of a hooded baggy top, tracksuit pants and training shoes.
Observer 24 Sept. 1989, p. 37
hip house (Music) (Youth Culture) see house
hi-tack |
(Lifestyle and Leisure) see tack |
HIV |
abbreviation (Health and Fitness) |
Short for human immunodeficiency virus, a name for either one of two retroviruses (properly called HIV-1 and HIV-2) which cause a breakdown of the body's immune system, leading in some cases to the development of Aids.
Etymology: The initial letters of Human Inmmunodeficiency Virus.
History and Usage: HIV became the official name for the Aids retroviruses in 1986, after an international committee had looked into the proliferation of names resulting from research in different parts of the world (previously, the same retroviruses had been known variously as ARV: Aids-related virus, HTLV-III (or HTLV-3): human T-cell lymphotropic or lymphocyte virus 3, and LAV-1 and LAV-2: lymphadenopathy-associated virus 1 and 2). The US Center for Disease Control used HIV attributively in three of the six stages that it identified: the base state, HIV antibody seronegativity, involves no sign in the blood of exposure to HIV; HIV antibody seropositivity identifies the presence of
antibodies; and HIV asymptomaticity refers to infection with the
virus which has not produced any signs of illness. (For the full list of stages, see Aids.) Colloquially, HIV is sometimes called the HIV virus, effectively repeating the word virus (but showing that many people are not aware of the expansion of the abbreviation), and HIV-positive is used as an alternative for antibody-positive (similarly HIV-negative). In the late
eighties, confusion over the terminology of Aids (and in particular frequent reference to people who actually had only a positive report of HIV infection as 'having Aids') led to the development of the term HIV disease for the earlier stages.
Most people with HIV infection feel entirely well and may remain so for years...Some may feel ill...at the time they 'seroconvert' (i.e. become HIV antibody positive).
Allegra Taylor Acquainted with the Night (1989), p. 82
People with haemophilia who are HIV-negative should be able to get life insurance (though it may cost more).
Which? Sept. 1989, p. 454
Channel 4's recent Dispatches programme, which repeated the arguments of (among others) molecular biologist Peter Duesberg to suggest that the HIV virus can't cause Aids, has caused outrage and concern among Aids specialists in Britain.
Guardian 29 June 1990, p. 38
8.4 HM
HM |
(Music) (Youth Culture) see heavy metal |
8.5 hog...
hog |
(Drugs) see angel dust |
homeboy noun Also written home boy or home-boy (Youth Culture)
In young people's slang (especially in the US): a friend or
peer, a member of one's own gang or set; hence (in the usage of adult outsiders) a street kid, a member of a teenage gang.
Etymology: This is an example of the spread of common Black English expressions into White vocabulary, largely through the medium of rap (see also bad, def, diss, fresh, and rare). In
Black English (especially among youngsters from the Deep South), homeboy was an established expression for 'a person from one's home town' and this was extended in Black college slang to anyone from one's own peer group or gang before being taken up by White youngsters as well, from rap lyrics and rap talk generally.
History and Usage: The original use of homeboy for a person from one's own home town dates back to at least the late
sixties, but this does not seem to have been extended to members of a peer group or gang until the development of the street culture of the late seventies which gave rise to break-dancing and hip hop. Interestingly it is also attested among Black youngsters in South Africa. The spread of the hip-hop culture to White youngsters in the US and the UK during the mid and late
eighties ensured that homeboy became one of the more prominent 'new' American words of the second half of the decade. The female equivalent is a homegirl; in slang use, homeboy or homegirl can be abbreviated and altered, to home or homes (and even Sherlock, after Sherlock Holmes), homeslice, etc.
It's sprayed on walls...by some of the 30,000 'home
boys', or gang members of the 400 gangs who roam, pretty much at will in LA county.
Listener 16 June 1983, p. 14
Having restrained my homeboys we walked away with dignity, but the whole posse was quite visibly in tears.
City Limits 9 Oct. 1986, p. 52
Just when all my homeboys is just kickin' it, like we all go somewhere.
Spectator 28 May 1988, p. 11
Who cares about its symbolism, homeboy and homegirl has one, why can't I?
Vindicator (Cleveland State University) 10-24 May 1989, p. 2
The perfect person to speak to their largely minority a udience would be...a hip homeboy whose insecurities about making it in an Anglo-dominated world match their own.
LA Style Mar. 1990, p. 116
homophobia
noun (People and Society)
Fear or dislike of homosexuals and homosexuality.
Etymology: Formed by adding the Greek suffix -phobia (meaning 'fear' or 'dislike') to the first part of homosexual. The
formation is objected to by some people on the grounds that homoas a combining form would normally mean 'the same' (as it does in homosexual) or that the word was already in use in the sense 'fear of men' (see below).
History and Usage: Homophobia was originally coined in the twenties in the sense 'fear or dislike of men', but as a hybrid formation mixing Latin and Greek elements (Latin homo 'man' and Greek -phobia) it did not really catch on. The impetus for a completely separate word based on homosexual rather than Latin homo and meaning 'fear or dislike of homosexuals' came from the gay liberation movement in the US in the late sixties, when consciousness of gay issues among the general public was being 'raised'. The term was popularized by American writer George Weinberg in articles published throughout the seventies, but did not reach a wide audience until the advent of Aids turned the phenomenon it described into a growing reality. A person who fears or dislikes homosexuals is called a homophobe; the
adjective homophobic was derived from homophobia in the mid seventies.
Some [homosexuals] even alleged darkly that a supposedly
homophobic Reagan administration was deliberately withholding money so that the 'gay plague' would wipe them out.
The Times 12 Oct. 1985, p. 8
Each Wednesday night they attended the Gay Homeowners' Association meeting at the Unitarian church, and the pastor...asked, 'Has anyone experienced any homophobia this week?'
Don Leavitt Equal Affections (1989), p. 24
'What part of your life would you recycle into another life?' 'Most of it, but not rottweilers, winebars,
racists or homophobes.'
George Melly in Marxism Today June 1990, p. 56
Hooray Henry
(People and Society) see Sloane Ranger
hopefully see basically
hospice noun (Health and Fitness)
A nursing-home dedicated to the care of the dying and the incurably ill.
Etymology: A specialization of the word hospice, which originally referred to a house of rest for pilgrims etc., usually run by a religious order; by the end of the nineteenth
century the word was used for any home for the destitute. The early hospices for the dying were mostly set up by religious orders too.
History and Usage: The word hospice has actually been in use for a home for the terminally ill since the turn of the century, but did not become widely known in this sense until the rise of the hospice movement of the late seventies and early eighties, which led to the setting up of hospices in many countries as
places where people could be given a caring environment in which to spend their last days.
Mother Frances is best known as the founder..., fundraiser and administrator of Helen House, in Oxford, England, probably the world's first hospice for dying or acutely afflicted children.
Washington Post 30 Aug. 1985, section B, p. 1
He pays full tribute to his inspirer, Dame Cicely
Saunders, who pioneered the hospice movement.
Church Times 8 Aug. 1986, p. 7
hostile adjective (Business World)
Of a take-over bid or proposed merger: against the wishes of the target company's management; predatory, contested.
Etymology: A specialized sense of hostile in its figurative use, with an admixture of the literal meaning 'involving hostilities'.
History and Usage: The term arose in the financial markets of the US in the mid seventies. It was the sharp increase in hostile bids in the first half of the eighties that led to the
growth of devices such as the buyout, the Pac-Man defence (see Pac-Maný), and the poison pill.
Greycoat Group...is making a hostile œ108 million offer for Property Holding and Investment Trust.
The Times 26 Aug. 1986, p. 15
Mr. Segal insists that hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts and forced restructurings--which he bundles together under the...label 'corporate makeovers'--are 'symptoms, not the disease'.
New York Times Book Review 29 Oct. 1989, p. 32
-hostile (Science and Technology) see unfriendlyý
host surrogacy
(Health and Fitness) (People and Society) see surrogacy
hot button
noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Politics)
A central issue, concern, or characteristic that motivates people to make a particular choice (among consumer goods, political candidates, social structures, etc.).
Etymology: Formed by compounding: the imagery is that of a particular spot or button that must be found and pressed to trigger off the desired responses in the people one wants to influence (an image that had existed before in the figurative sense of panic button, used in the phrase hit the panic button); hot here is used in the combined senses of 'current or fashionable', as in hot news and hot fashions, and 'tricky', as in hot potato. It has been suggested that the term might also refer to the physical buttons on interactive television
controls, with which viewers can vote, for example to register their support for an entertainment act or for one of the sides in a debate.
History and Usage: The expression hot button originated in the world of marketing in the US in the late seventies, when it was used to refer to the 'upcoming' desires of the buying public
that the market would need to satisfy. It acquired a much wider currency when it started to be used in political contexts, though: before the end of the seventies it had been used as a
synonym for hot-spot (describing Washington and Los Angeles as political hot buttons), but it was not widely applied to
political issues of current concern (what the British might have called political hot potatoes) until the US presidential
campaigns of 1984 and 1988. Since then hot button has become a political buzzword in the US, developing an attributive use as well (in hot-button issue etc.) in which it means 'central, influential, crucial'.
The news-magazine [Newsweek], in the forefront of popularizers of this phrase, listed Republican hot buttons as the American Civil Liberties Union, abortion and guns.
New York Times Magazine 6 Nov. 1988, p. 22
Randall Lewis...discussed the 'hot buttons' essential to catering to baby boom families.
New York Times 25 Jan. 1990, section C, p. 6
In the recent Congressional elections, Senator Helms tried to make homosexuality the 'hot button' of his campaign.
Gay Times Dec. 1990, p. 11
hothousing
noun Also written hot-housing (Lifestyle and Leisure) (People and Society)
The policy or practice of artificially accelerating the intellectual development of a child by intensive teaching from babyhood.
Etymology: A figurative use of the verbal noun hothousing. Literally, the verb means 'to cultivate in a hothouse'; in educational hothousing the children are treated as hothouse plants which can be 'brought on' by intensive education.
History and Usage: The idea of hothousing in education is not especially new: in the early sixties A. S. Neill lamented the fact 'every child has been hothoused into an adult long before he has reached adulthood', and schools for gifted children which concentrated their education in the child's area of excellence were known as hothouse schools before the idea of intensively
educating babies had been tried. The type of hothousing defined above, though, became fashionable in the US in the late seventies and eighties. The underlying principle was that any child could develop into a genius if only all the available time were used for education; using all the available time meant starting intensive training with flash-cards long before the
child could talk or understand in the conventional sense what was being taught. The children subjected to this approach were called hothouse children.
Their father...wanted to test the hot-housing theory; that if you subject a normally intelligent child to
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intensive, specialised training in a particular |
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discipline at a very early age, you will produce |
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excellence. |
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Observer 30 Oct. 1988, p. 4 |
hotline |
(People and Society) see -line |
house |
noun Also written House (Music) (Youth Culture) |
A style of popular music typically featuring the use of drum machines, sequencers, sampled sound effects, and prominent synthesized bass lines, in combination with sparse, repetitive vocals and a fast beat; called more fully house music.
Etymology: An abbreviated form of Warehouse, the name of a nightclub in Chicago where music of this kind was first played (see also warehouse).
History and Usage: House was the creation of disc jockeys at the Warehouse in Chicago and was first played in 1985. It is designed for dancing, and so does away with meaningful lyrics in favour of complicated mixtures of synthesized sounds and a repetitive beat. For these purposes it proved very popular with club-goers and at warehouse parties when introduced in the UK in the late eighties, giving rise to large numbers of sub-genres mixing the features of house music with existing sounds: during 1987-9, following on from acid house, there was deep house (house with more emphasis on lyrics and showing the influence of soul music), hip house (mixing hip hop with house), ska house (house with Jamaican influences), and even Dutch house and Italian house. As a result of this, the term house has come to
be used to refer generically to a whole range of sounds which share the characteristics mentioned in the definition above. House also contributed its own vocabulary to the language--for example, the verb jack in the sense 'move', as in the song
titles Jack Your Body, Jack It All Night Long, etc.
House is the mystifying music they call the key...House is meta-music, always referring outwards to other sounds, past and present.
record sleeve of The House Sound of Chicago (1986)