The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

Which? Apr. 1990, p. 205

It was only last year that the F.D.A. learned that dioxin...was migrating from bleached paperboard cartons into milk and fruit juices and from microwave meal packages.

New York Times 7 May 1990, section D, p. 11

middleware

(Science and Technology) see -ware

noun: An interface which allows electronic musical instruments, synthesizers, and computers to be interconnected and used simultaneously.

adjective: Making use of this kind of interface, usually as part of a complete music system.

Etymology: An acronym, formed on the initial letters of its official name, Musical Instrument Digital Interface.

History and Usage: MIDI was invented in the US in the early eighties at a time when increasing use was being made of synthesizers in the world of music, both classical and popular. It was the introduction of this standard means of linking a

number of synthesizers with a computer which made possible some of the most characteristic musical developments of the eighties: sequencers, sampling, and techno music generally depend upon the possibility of recording and remixing sounds and effects from electronic sources. What really brought the word MIDI into the high street, though, was the appearance on the market in the mid eighties of the MIDI system, a home music system which incorporates a programmable CD player and usually a whole range of other elements such as cassette decks, a stereo radio, a traditional record player, and amplification equipment.

Some professional musicians already use MIDI connections to play several synthesizers at once from a single

keyboard.

Newsweek 28 May 1984, p. 89

A typical midi system reproduces about 50% of the music on your records and CDs.

Q Mar. 1989, p. 129

milk-free (Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure) see -free

mind-boggling see boggling

minder noun (Politics) (People and Society)

A person employed to protect a celebrity, politician, etc. from physical harm or from unwanted publicity. Also, a political adviser (especially a senior politician who protects a more inexperienced one from embarrassment or mistakes, for example in an election campaign); anyone whose job is to 'mind' another person and ensure that he or she does not overstep the mark.

Etymology: A sense which has developed from the use of minder in criminals' slang since the twenties. A criminal's bodyguard

or assistant was known as a minder, and this word has now simply been applied in a wider and more official context, perhaps under the influence of the very successful television series Minder (1979- ), about a petty criminal and his bodyguard, whom he hires out to 'mind' other people's property.

History and Usage: Extended uses of the slang sense of minder started to crop up quite frequently in the press from about the mid eighties, usually with the word minder in inverted commas; within a few years the inverted commas had been dropped and minder seemed to have moved from slang into the standard language. Pop stars and other celebrities often employ a whole group of minders, as much to ward off the unwanted attention of journalists and inquisitive members of the public as to avoid physical harm.

He goes out alone: unlike fellow multimillionaires like Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson, he refuses to employ a minder.

Today 10 Nov. 1987, p. 20

The minder, Mr Simon Burns, Conservative MP for Chelmsford, directed all enquiries about the plans of Mr Nigel Lawson to the press office.

The Times 30 Nov. 1988, p. 7

Her London lawyer and minder...had struck a deal with a British newspaper to reveal the secrets she has so far coyly refused to disclose.

The Times 5 Apr. 1989, p. 7

mindset noun Also written mind-set (People and Society)

In colloquial use: an attitude or frame of mind; an unthinking assumption or opinion.

Etymology: A weakened sense of mindset, which was originally a more precise psychological and sociological term referring to habits of mind which had been formed as a result of previous events or environment and which affected a person's attitudes.

History and Usage: This more general use of mindset became a fashionable synonym for attitude, starting in the late seventies in American journalistic writing, and spreading to British use

as well during the eighties. The vogue made the more precise and original sense difficult to use, since many readers now think of mindset as being the same thing as attitude, rather than an

event or condition imprinted on the psyche in such a way as to inform attitudes.

The Kemeny report asserted that a change in 'mind-set', or mental attitude, was essential if nuclear safety was to be assured.

Scientific American Mar. 1980, p. 33

The Western scientists noted the Chernobyl reactor had the best operating record of any in the Soviet Union and said the operators had got into a 'mindset' that nothing

moi pronoun

Humorously (especially when feigning pretentiousness or false modesty): me, myself.

Etymology: French for me.

History and Usage: This has become a sort of humorous shorthand for pretentious reference to oneself in the late seventies and eighties, based on the obvious pretension of slipping into a

foreign language. It was largely popularized through its use on television, especially by The Muppets (a children's puppet show created by Jim Henson), in which it was liberally used by the main female character, Miss Piggy. The theme was also taken up by a number of adult cult shows both in the US and in the UK.

So Harry says, 'You don't like me any more. Why not?' And he says, 'Because you've got so terribly pretentious.' And Harry says, 'Pretentious? Moi?'

John Cleese and Connie Booth Fawlty Towers (1988), p. 190

I think it's going to be a great advantage for Ventura and for moi...A methanol sign on the freeway will lead them to my station.

Los Angeles Times 30 June 1988 (Ventura County edition), section 9, p. 6

mondo adverb (Youth Culture)

In young people's slang, originally in the US: utterly, ultimately, extremely.

Etymology: Formed by interpreting the (originally Italian) word mondo 'world' as an adverb, in attributive uses of phrases such as mondo bizarro (see below).

History and Usage: In 1961 the Italian film director Gualtiero Jacopetti produced the film Mondo Cane, which was released in the English-speaking world in 1963 as A Dog's Life. Ostensibly a

documentary, it consisted of thirty sequences of such peculiar aspects of human behaviour as cannibalism and a restaurant for dogs, and became wildly popular: the original title became sufficiently well known for other films of an equally anarchic nature to be given similar titles (often with a mock-Italian flavour), such as Mondo Bizarro (1966) and Mondo Trasho (1970).

During the seventies such formations became more common outside the cinema, with the meaning 'the weirder or seedier side of (a particular place, activity, etc.)': mondo bizarro began to be

used attributively in the sense 'extremely bizarre', and mondo began to be reinterpreted as an adverb (and the following word as an adjective). The connotations of seediness or grossness persisted for some time, but by the time it had been absorbed into Valspeak in the early eighties it had become a simple intensifier, similar to serious--see seriousý--and likewise also sometimes used as an adjective. It was, however, the adoption of mondo by the Turtles that led to its spreading outside North America, predominantly in expressions of approval like mondo cool.

It was just part of a week in which the news, particularly on ABC, went further and further into the realm of Mondo Bizarro.

Washington Post 19 Apr. 1980, section C, p. 1

Last weekend Mom let me go visit her and stay in the dorm and everything. It was MONDO party time.

Mimi Pond The Valley Girl's Guide to Life (1982), p. 49

Why this fascination with Miller? Because he's so mondo cool, even though he's not British and doesn't have spiked hair!

Stereo Review Apr. 1986

monergy noun (Environment) (Business World)

Economical use of energy; fuel conservation leading to greater cost-effectiveness in running one's home. (Originally, money spent on energy costs: see below.)

Etymology: Formed by telescoping money and energy to form a blend; the word was apparently invented by the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi.

History and Usage: Monergy was originally part of the slogan 'Get more for your monergy'--the catch-phrase of a Government energy-saving campaign in the UK in 1985. The whole campaign

soon came to be known by the one word monergy, which was widely criticized as an ugly and unnecessary formation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is already rarely seen, despite the greater

emphasis on energy conservation which has been urged by the green movement in the late eighties and early nineties.

Efficiency in use also requires conservation, lower energy appliances and domestic insulation, and the government's soft pedalling on its 'monergy' campaign is to be regretted.

Planet 82 Aug./Sept. 1990, p. 60

monetarism

noun (Business World) (Politics)

An economic theory based on the belief that only control of the money supply can successfully bring about changes in the rate of inflation or the level of unemployment.

Etymology: Formed by adding the suffix -ism in the sense of 'a system, belief, or ideological basis' to monetary as used in monetary control etc.

History and Usage: This is not a particularly new word--the theory was first proposed by David Hume in the eighteenth century and the word has been used in relation to the economic theories of Professor Milton Friedman and his followers since the late 1960s--but it is one which has been used so frequently in the eighties to refer to the economic basis of the political administration both in the UK and in the US that it deserves an entry here for its high profile in recent years. Monetarism has been the underlying principle for controlling inflation used by

the Conservative government in the UK under Mrs Thatcher and Mr Major, and the US Presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and as such it has affected the lives of

millions of British and American citizens. It has been the main opponent of Keynesianism (based on the theories of J. M. Keynes), which puts an obligation on governments to create employment and put money into people's pockets through public spending. A believer in the economic principle of monetarism is a monetarist; the adjective to describe policies founded on the principle is also monetarist.

Not even the fierce monetarism of the last decade has prevented us from paying ourselves far more in relation to what we produce than any of our major competitors.

Guardian 3 July 1989, p. 11

In the early 1980s the insights of monetarism were dissipated because the claims of the monetarists for control of the money supply as a cure-all were exaggerated.

Financial Times 3 Apr. 1990, p. 21

moonwalk (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture) see break-dancing

Moral Majority

noun (Politics)

In the US, a right-wing political movement emphasizing traditional moral standards in society and drawing support mainly from fundamentalist Christian groups. Hence more generally (as moral majority), upholders of traditional right-wing social values.

Etymology: So named because it claims to represent a majority of the American people favouring the re-establishment of moral standards.

History and Usage: The Moral Majority movement was founded by Revd Jerry Falwell in Washington DC at the end of the seventies, originally as a 'legislative research foundation' to promote conservative Christian viewpoints. During the eighties it

attracted considerable support and was able to put its message across through commercial religious broadcasting (the 'electric church'), even putting one of the televangelists up as a

possible presidential candidate in the middle of the decade. In 1986 it was renamed the Liberty Federation but by this time the phrase moral majority had acquired the more general meaning of the conservative or traditionalist component of society.

As well as the relentlessly Ann Summers view of sex, metal's other great shock tactic is horror and devil worship imagery. Accusations of satanism have stirred up America's moral majority to call for outright bans, a guarantee for enhanced teen appeal.

Guardian 11 Aug. 1989, p. 24

more than my job's worth

(People and Society) see jobsworth

mountain bike

noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)

A bicycle with a sturdy lightweight frame, fat, deep-treaded tyres, and multiple gears, originally designed for riding on mountainous terrain.

Etymology: Formed by compounding: a bike for mountain riding.

History and Usage: Although originally designed for hill-riding, the mountain bike became the most fashionable and sought after style of bicycle for town and road cycling as well during the late eighties, rising to the height of a status

symbol by 1990. The fashion began in the US and Canada in the early eighties and by 1987 had spread to the UK. At first, mountain bikes were custom-made in California rather than being

mass-produced; the name began as a component of the brand names of these 'designer' bikes, such as the Ritchey Mountain Bike.

The mountain bike has a distinctive appearance with its thick, heavily treaded tyres and straight handlebars, but the reason for its popularity is more likely to be its versatility and performance, achieved mainly through the wide choice of gears

(more than twenty on some models). The sport of hill-riding on

a mountain bike is known as mountain biking; someone who takes part in it is a mountain biker. Mountain bikes are also

sometimes known as off-roaders or all-terrain bikes (ATBs).