The Oxford Dictionary of New Words
.pdfMountain biking demands hill-walking stamina as well as track-riding skills. Initially, choose gentle routes
among familiar terrain--or risk prolonged shoulder-carries!
Country Living Nov. 1987, p. 164
80 per cent of all bikes sold in London are now mountain bikes.
The Face Jan. 1989, p. 8
Cycling, like walking, is one of the best ways of seeing and enjoying the countryside, and mountain bikes have proved to be the latest and most popular method of 'green' transport: over 1 million of them were sold last year.
National Trust Magazine Autumn 1990, p. 9
mouse noun (Science and Technology)
A computer peripheral consisting of a small plastic box with a number of buttons and a lead, which may be moved about on a desk or tablet to control the position of the cursor on a monitor,
and used to enter commands.
Etymology: A metaphorical use of the animal name, arising from the appearance of the computer device, with its compact body and its trailing flex resembling a tail, as well as its effect of
making the cursor 'scamper' across the screen. This is the latest in a long line of technical uses of mouse based on physical resemblance to the furry animal: these include a nautical term for a type of knot and a plumber's lead weight on a line.
History and Usage: This kind of mouse was invented by English and Engelhardt, computer scientists at Stanford Research Institute in California, and was first named by them in print in
1965. By the seventies the device was produced commercially, but it was only during the eighties that it became widely
popularized as WIMPs (see WIMPý) became available to personal computer users. The usage debate has centred on the correct
plural form in this sense, with some computer scientists using the regular plural mice, others mouses; mice certainly has the majority. A measure of the popularity of the mouse is the number of compounds it has produced, notably mouse-button (any of the keys on a mouse which allow one to enter commands), and adjectives such as mouse-controlled and mouse-driven.
Mouse-driven software has caught the imagination of
American hardware designers.
Australian Personal Computer Aug. 1983, p. 60
In a world of twoand three-button mice, why did Apple decide on the...one-button mouse?
A+ July 1984, p. 35
mousse° noun and verb (Lifestyle and Leisure)
noun: A foamy substance sold as an aerosol or in a pressurized form, usually for applying to the hair to give it body and help to set it in a style.
transitive verb: To apply mousse to (the hair or some other part of the body).
Etymology: Mousse was originally a French word meaning 'froth'. It has been applied in English cookery to frothy pur‚es using whipped cream or egg since the nineteenth century; the beauty preparation has a similar consistency to an edible mousse, but it may represent a fresh borrowing from French (see below).
History and Usage: Hair-styling products in the form of a pressurized foam (for home perming, for example) have been on the market for fifteen years or more, but were not generally known as mousses; the impetus to develop a non-sticky setting foam that could be used outside salons came from the increased popularity of blow-dried women's hairstyles in the late seventies. The first mousse for the general market was developed at the beginning of the eighties by the French firm l'Or‚al;
their marketing of the product using the untranslated French word mousse was probably the deciding factor in the
establishment of mousse as the generic term for hair-styling foams. Mousse was so popular in the eighties (especially in creating the sculpted, swept-up styles that were fashionable then) that manufacturers of other pressurized beauty products
also began using the word mousse, and combinations such as body mousse started to appear on labels and in advertising.
'People will try to mousse everything,'predicts stylist Louis Licari.
People 10 Sept. 1984, p. 79
All these looks were created on one permed head and styled using a selection of mousse, gel, and spray.
Hair Flair Sept. 1986, p. 10
See also gel
mousseý noun (Environment)
A frothy mixture of oil and sea-water which may develop after an oil spill and which is very difficult to disperse; known more
fully as chocolate mousse.
Etymology: The same word as mousse° above; in this case, definitely so named because of its resemblance to the edible mousse.
History and Usage: The term was first used (in the fuller form chocolate mousse) in relation to the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967, and appears to have taken the unusual route for a technical term of starting in the writing of lay reporters in
the press and only later being taken up by specialists as a precise term (a water-in-oil emulsion of 50 to 80 per cent water content). From technical writing in the seventies, it moved back into the popular press each time there was a major oil spill--most recently in relation to the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska in 1989.
The Ixtoc 1 well released oil for 9 months into the open ocean where winds and currents dispersed the floating mousse...which had formed at the wellhead.
Nature 19 Mar. 1981, p. 235
He said the main part of the slick is about 30 miles from shore, half the distance from the ship to the shore, and thin streamers of oil with the consistency of mousse extend another 10 miles toward shore.
New York Times 15 June 1990, section A, p. 12
13.8 MRI...
MRI |
abbreviation (Health and Fitness) (Science and Technology) |
Short for magnetic resonance imaging, a technique which provides sectional images of the internal structure of the patient's body
by plotting the nuclear magnetic resonance of its atoms and converting the results into graphic form by computer.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: the image is based on the varying magnetic resonance of the atoms making up the body.
History and Usage: Like CAT scanning (see CAT°), MRI was developed in the mid seventies as a diagnostic technique which would do away with the need for exploratory surgery. At first it was known as the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique or zeugmatography, but magnetic resonance imaging and the abbreviation MRI now seem to be becoming the established terms in popular sources. The technique works by passing low-frequency radiation through the soft tissues of the body in
the presence of a strong magnetic field and scanning the temporary magnetic realignment that this produces in the nuclei of the elements; the machinery required to do this (an MR scanner) only became commercially available in the UK in the first half of the eighties. MRI produces a clear image of soft tissue even if it is obscured by bone, and is likely to become one of the foremost diagnostic techniques of the nineties. The
abbreviation MRI is also sometimes used for magnetic resonance imager (another name for an MR scanner).
The company's intensive work on developing semiconductor magnet systems has resulted in today's applications
in...magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Physics Bulletin Jan. 1987, p. 9
MRIs are like CAT scan machines, but they create images by placing a patient in a strong magnetic field.
Baltimore Sun 7 Mar. 1990, section C, p. 10
13.9 muesli belt...
muesli belt
noun (Health and Fitness)
Humorously, an area largely populated by middle-class health-food faddists.
Etymology: Formed by compounding. Belt has long been used in the sense of a zone or region, especially with a preceding word denoting the main characteristic or product (such as corn belt,
rust belt, etc.). Muesli is seen as the archetypal health food; in this case there is also some allusion to the Bible belt, with the implication that belief in health foods is fundamental to the way of life of this group.
History and Usage: The term arose soon after the middle-class obsession with health foods took hold in the late seventies. A report published in 1986 showed that the children of health-food faddists tend to be undernourished, a fact which gave rise to
the term muesli-belt malnutrition.
Team vicar required. An attractive post in S.W. London 'Muesli belt'.
advertisement in Not the Church Times 22 Sept. 1981, p. 6
muggee noun (People and Society)
The victim of a mugging; a person who is or has been mugged.
Etymology: Formed by adding the suffix -ee, denoting the person
affected by an action, to the verb mug, 'to rob violently, especially in a public place'.
History and Usage: The word has been used in US English (which tends to form nouns in -ee more freely than UK English) since
the early seventies. With the increasing problem of street muggings in the eighties, and the difficulty of finding an alternative word for the victim, it has spread beyond the US to other parts of the English-speaking world.
Have the muggees, the majority of whom are white, no right to be protected against muggers?
Spectator 28 Nov. 1981, p. 4
After proving four were tougher than one the muggers drove off and the muggee went home to bed.
Brisbane Telegraph 9 Apr. 1987, p. 14
Muldergate
(Politics) see -gate
multilevel
adjective Also written multi-level (Business World)
In business jargon: operating on a number of levels simultaneously. Used especially in multilevel marketing or multilevel sales: a selling technique involving direct contact with the customer through a network of independent distributors.
Etymology: So named because the system makes use of sellers at a number of different levels in the organization, each buyer taking on the responsibility of finding further sellers as well
as trying to sell the product.
History and Usage: Multilevel marketing originated in the US in the early seventies as a name for a development of the type of marketing operation that is sometimes also called direct sales or pyramid selling (an earlier term with more critical connotations, dating from the sixties)--the technique best exemplified by Tupperware parties and home shopping representatives. Multilevel seemed to become one of the
buzzwords of the sales world in the eighties, but the system has been criticized because it tends to exploit those in the middle of the pyramid, putting great pressure on them to find more sales staff.
Merchant Associates said it was working for a California-based organisation selling health products on a multi-level (or pyramid) system.
Daily Telegraph 4 Feb. 1987, p. 22
To avoid problems, he says, USA Today no longer takes ads for multilevel sales organizations, where you make your biggest money not by selling products but by bringing new sales people into the game.
Chicago Tribune 17 Oct. 1988, section 4, p. 7
multimedia
(Science and Technology) see CD
muso noun (Music)
In musicians' slang (originally in Australia): a musician, a music fanatic.
Etymology: Formed by abbreviating musician and adding the colloquial suffix -o; like journo, a typically Australian slang nickname.
History and Usage: Muso has been used in Australia since the late sixties, and is used there of classical as well as popular musicians. It had started to appear in the popular music press in the UK by the late seventies (and so was probably in spoken use for some time before that), but in British use it seems to
be more or less limited to the pop and rock scene.
Since he's also a muso, and has a brother...with Whitesnake connections, it seemed like a good idea to turn all the background knowledge of crass horrors into more than a Trapeze reunion, a rockstravaganza called 'Phenomena'.
Sounds 27 July 1985, p. 17
It's hard to imagine many people, apart from die-hard musos and dedicated Gabriel fans, would want to listen to this in the comfort of their own home.
Empire Sept. 1989, p. 108
13.10 myalgic encephalomyelitis...
myalgic encephalomyelitis (Health and Fitness) see ME
14.0N
14.1nab...
nab |
acronym (Lifestyle and Leisure) |
Short for no-alcohol beer, a beer from which almost all the alcohol has been removed after brewing.
Etymology: The initial letters of No-Alcohol Beer.
History and Usage: Nabs became increasingly popular in the late eighties as the message of 'don't drink and drive' finally started to sink in and alcohol-free drinks became more widely available in bars and restaurants. The low-alcohol equivalent of a nab is a lab (low-alcohol beer); these too became more popular and widely available during the eighties. In the trade, the two categories are sometimes grouped together as nablabs.
Alcohol-free or low-alcohol beers, the so-called Nablabs, are now available in almost every public house in Britain.
The Times 2 Dec. 1988, p. 7
Next on the agenda is image. The so-called 'nablab'
sector...is growing at the rate of 100 per cent each year, 200 per cent in the case of low-alcohol wines.
Daily Telegraph 3 Dec. 1988, p. 13
Nabs and labs...are brewed as normal beers and then go through a further process to remove or reduce the alcohol.
Daily Telegraph 24 Oct. 1990, p. 36
nacho (Lifestyle and Leisure)
A tortilla chip, usually served grilled and topped with melted cheese, jalape¤o peppers, spices, etc.; often in the plural nachos, a 'Tex-Mex' snack with these ingredients.
Etymology: The word is clearly borrowed from Mexican Spanish, but its further origins have been the subject of some debate.
The dish was first served in the late forties, and one attractive theory is that it was named after the chef who first
prepared it. Nacho is the diminutive form of the Spanish given name Ignacio, and one Ignacio 'Nacho' Anaya, a Mexican chef working in the Texan border area of Piedras Negras in the forties, has claimed the honour. The apparent plural form may have originated as a misinterpreted possessive Nacho's. Another theory is that the word is borrowed from the Mexican Spanish adjective nacho, meaning 'flat-nosed'.
History and Usage: Although first prepared as long ago as the forties, nachos did not spread far outside Texas and North
Mexico until the seventies, and only became widely known through fast-food chains in the eighties. The original dish consisted
of a wedge of tortilla, garnished and toasted, but in Britain the basic ingredient has always been corn chips.
The chain of Mexican fast-food restaurants is busily expanding its product line to include...a nacho side dish, and a salad.
Fortune 14 Nov. 1983, p. 126
I can tell you what they served. It was guacamole and
nachos and there was Gallo jug wine and shrimp dip.
Jonathan Kellerman Shrunken Heads (1985), p. 86
naff° adjective (Youth Culture)
In British slang: unfashionable, lacking in style, vulgar or kitsch; also, useless, dud.
Etymology: Despite its resemblance to the verb (see naffý), the two words do not seem to be etymologically related. The origins of the adjective may lie in English dialects, several of which have similar words of contempt for inept or stupid people: in the North of England, for example, an idiot is a naffhead, naffin, or naffy, and niffy-naffy as an adjective (meaning 'stupid') has been recorded since the last century. In Scotland, nyaff is a term of contempt for any stupid or objectionable person.
History and Usage: The word was first used in the late sixties, mostly among young people, as a new alternative for 'square'. The rise of social groups such as the Sloane Rangers and the yuppies in the eighties made it socially desirable for people to know how to avoid being naff (just as, some decades earlier, the social ‚lite had wanted to know how to be U rather than non-U);
and in 1983 a whole book (The Complete Naff Guide) was devoted to the subject. Although principally a British word, naff has
been borrowed into US English. Now overtaken by other words among the really young, it is used by those who want to sound younger than they are. The nouns corresponding to naff are naff (for the whole style) and naffness (for the quality of being naff).
No electricity...I think it's just a naff battery connection.
Liza Cody Bad Company (1982), p. 13
'I shan't bother with that,' a chap retorted on hearing what preview I had attended. 'One-word title that doesn't make sense--bound to be naff.'
Daily Mail 6 Apr. 1985, p. 6