The Oxford Dictionary of New Words
.pdfdescribed as a PC XT (after the appropriate IBM model) and one with 'advanced technology' (using a more advanced chip) as a PC AT, on the same principle.
BGL Technology's LaserLeader line of plotter/printer splits the responsibilities for the front-end work and graphics processing between an embedded PC AT and a graphics processor.
UnixWorld Sept. 1989, p. 137
Choose a PC which has...a colour EGA (enhanced graphics adaptor) monitor which will be able to display the games and educational software, and has a resolution high enough for your word processing.
Which? May 1990, p. 271
PCB° abbreviation (Environment)
Short for polychlorinated biphenyl, any of a number of chemical compounds which are obtained by adding chlorine atoms to biphenyl and which cause persistent environmental pollution.
Etymology: The initial letters of parts of the chemical name PolyChlorinated Biphenyl.
History and Usage: PCBs were widely used in old electrical transformers, hydraulic and lubricating oils, paints, lacquers, varnishes, and the plastics industry, until they were recognized as very toxic pollutants in the late sixties. They are
difficult to dispose of and have been shown to be carcinogenic in people and animals, with the result that production of them
was stopped in the US and the UK during the late seventies. What brought them into the public eye in the eighties was the general upsurge of interest in environmental issues; the persistent problem of disposing of the PCBs which were so liberally used in the fifties and sixties, before it was realized that they could
be so dangerous, has meant that they remain on the green agenda.
The emergency meeting of 18 scientists...called for every effort to be made to reduce the leakage into the environment of an extremely long-lasting and toxic type
of pollutant, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Independent 12 Aug. 1988, p. 1
The otters take in the PCB from the fish that they eat along with other pollutants.
Earth Matters Summer 1990, p. 4
PCBý abbreviation (Science and Technology)
Short for printed circuit board, a flat sheet carrying the printed circuits and microchips in a microcomputer or other microelectronic device.
Etymology: The initial letters of Printed Circuit Board.
History and Usage: A common abbreviation in writing on computing and electronics since the seventies; it is now sometimes used in less technical sources and is included here to distinguish it from the commoner use above.
If you look inside its workings, you will find the PCB (printed circuit board), with all the chips or ICs (integrated circuits), neatly plugged into it.
Observer 3 Oct. 1982, p. 21
PCP° abbreviation (Drugs)
In the slang of drug users, the drug phencyclidine hydrochloride, taken illegally for its hallucinogenic effects.
Etymology: The initials are said to come from PeaCe Pill, an early street name for the drug, although they could as easily come from PhenCyclidine Pill.
History and Usage: The drug was introduced as an anaesthetic in the late fifties, but was soon limited therapeutically to
veterinary use. It began to be taken illicitly as a hallucinogen in the psychedelic sixties; in the eighties it enjoyed a revival with the new psychedelia of acid house. PCP has had over 150 street names, some of which are listed in the entry for angel
dust (the most enduring of all of them).
In parallel with the rise in gang warfare has been the increasing availability of PCP...on the street drug-market.
Listener 7 June 1984, p. 7
We talked to kids who got stoned on PCP at eight in the morning, just to start the day.
Girl About Town 30 Jan. 1989, p. 11
PCPý abbreviation (Health and Fitness)
Short for pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, a fatal form of pneumonia caused by infection with the Pneumocystis carinii parasite, which especially affects the immunocompromised (such as people with Aids).
Etymology: The initial letters of Pneumocystis Carinii
Pneumonia.
History and Usage: Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, in which numerous cysts form inside the lung cavity, was first observed and named in the fifties and commonly abbreviated to PCP from the mid seventies. It was its rapid spread among people with Aids in the early and mid eighties that brought the name and the abbreviation out of the specialized domain of medical vocabulary and into widespread public use, especially in the US.
Three months after we'd moved in together, we learned
Keith had [Aids]. The tip-over diagnosis was PCP.
Michael Bishop Unicorn Mountain (1988; 1989 ed.), p. 61
16.3 peace camp...
peace camp
noun (Politics) (War and Weaponry)
A camp set up by peace campaigners, usually outside a military
establishment, as a long-term protest against the build-up of weapons.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: a camp for peace.
History and Usage: The peace camp was a phenomenon of the early eighties, when the campaign against nuclear weapons in
particular was at its height and peace campaigners felt that their protests had as yet found little response in the actions
and policies of the superpowers. In the UK, the name peace camp is particularly associated with the women's camp outside the US
airbase at Greenham Common in Berkshire (see wimmin), where some campaigners continued to live a decade or more after the camp
was set up in 1981.
Soviet newspapers are full of praise for the anti-nuclear activities of the women's peace camps at Greenham Common in Britain and elsewhere.
Economist 15 Mar. 1986, p. 63
peace dividend noun (Politics)
A saving in public spending on defence, brought about by the end of a conflict or successful disarmament negotiations.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: a dividend for the public purse because of a period of peace.
History and Usage: The idea of the peace dividend originated in the US in the late sixties as people began to speculate about an end to the Vietnam War. In practice, the expected surplus of public money did not materialize in the mid seventies and talk of a peace dividend largely died down until the late eighties. Then it was much discussed as an expected benefit--for the US,
other NATO countries, and the Warsaw Pact--of the ending of the Cold War and the resulting disarmament on both sides. Once again, it largely failed to materialize, this time because of
the allied involvement in the Gulf War in 1991.
Two Senate committees, Budget and Armed Services, have...already held hearings on what has come to be
called the 'peace dividend'. That is the money that will become available as military spending is reduced because of improved relations with the Soviet Union.
International Herald Tribune 21 Dec. 1989, p. 6
The awful truth may be that the peace dividend, if there is one, will be of less benefit to Europe than to the Americans, who have talked of cutting their defence budget by 25 per cent.
Observer 13 May 1990, p. 16
peace pill
(Drugs) see PCP°
peace wimmin
(Politics) (War and Weaponry) see wimmin
Pearlygate
(People and Society) see -gate
PEP |
acronym Also written P.E.P. or pep (Business World) |
Short for personal equity plan, an investment scheme intended to extend share ownership in the UK, under which investors are allowed to acquire shares up to a given value in UK companies without paying tax on dividends or capital gains.
Etymology: The initial letters of Personal Equity Plan; the acronym might well have been chosen with the resulting 'word' in mind, suggesting that this initiative would pep up the market in UK shares.
History and Usage: The PEP was an innovation introduced in the mid eighties by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson as a deliberate incentive to widespread share ownership in the UK; the scheme coincided with the beginning of the government's privatization programme which, it hoped, would result in a large proportion of the British population owning
and controlling their own service industries. The scheme presupposed long-term investment, so the tax advantage could only be earned if the investment remained in the Plan for a
minimum period. Many high-street banks and other financial institutions introduced their own PEPs, many of which included the services of a PEP manager to make the investment decisions if the investor did not wish to manage his or her own portfolio. There was also provision for a particular preference or bias to be put on the investments--the investor might request ethical investment or even a green PEP (one concentrating on environmentally sound investment), for example.
PEPS--Personal Equity Plans--are Mr Lawson's subtle persuaders which will, he hopes, turn us into a nation of shareholders.
Estates Gazette 9 Aug. 1986, p. 555
Your mortgage can be repaid by an endowment linked to an Ethical Fund or indeed by a Green P.E.P.
Green Magazine Dec. 1989, p. 55
perestroika
noun Also written perestroyka (Politics)
The 'restructuring' or reform of the economic and political system in the Soviet Union, first proposed in 1979 and actively promoted under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985 onwards. Hence any fundamental reorganization or reform, especially of a socialist society.
Etymology: A direct borrowing from Russian perestroyka, literally 'rebuilding, restructuring'. The same Russian word had been used within the Soviet Union to refer to the electrification programme of the twenties.
History and Usage: The policy of perestroika in the Soviet Union evolved out of an awareness among the central leadership of the deep economic and social crisis that the country seemed to be facing at the very end of the seventies, with widespread corruption, excessive bureaucracy, and industrial stagnation as
some of its principal symptoms. The problem was the subject of a series of decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU in April 1979; these were reported to the 26th Party Congress by Leonid Brezhnev, who said:
It is a question of restructuring--yes, this was not a slip of the tongue, I said restructuring--many sectors and areas of ideological work.
Despite this announcement, little actual progress was made towards perestroika until 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and made it a central tenet (along with glasnost) of his policy. The Central Committee considered a detailed programme for perestroika in April 1985, based on a careful analysis of
the state of the economy. This became the basis for a plan announced by Mikhail Gorbachev at the 27th Party Congress in February-March 1986. This Congress was unique in the history of CPSU Congresses for its open criticism of Soviet industry, bureaucracy, and society, and its call to radical change. Gorbachev himself saw perestroika as nothing less than a new revolution; as he wrote in his book Perestroika (1987):
In the spring of 1985, the Party put this task on the agenda. The gravity of accumulated and emerging problems, and the delay in their understanding and solution necessitated acting in a revolutionary way and proclaiming a revolutionary overhaul of society. Perestroika is a revolutionary process for it is a jump forward in the development of socialism.
Perestroika was widely discussed in the West at the time when it was first announced, and was generally seen as a sign of real change in Soviet society, especially since it was to be based on democratization. However, it proved less popular within the Soviet Union, where it seemed to make little difference to the availability of goods and even, some people argued, made life harder for the ordinary citizen. By the early nineties
perestroika had become the focus for a head-on fight between Mr Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, leader of the Russian Federation, who declared ideological war on the administration which had brought in the policy of perestroika. Meanwhile perestroika had become a byword in English for any radical reform, especially of a socialist country or system; one sign of the word's acceptance into the language was the fact that it soon acquired the derivative perestroikan (an adjective and noun).
Were Czechoslovakia to catch perestroika fever as
strongly as Poland and Hungary, the troika could embark on a path that would seriously threaten Moscow's strategic interests.
Guardian 29 July 1989, p. 8
Mr Kohl, the clever tactician who substitutes instinct for any lack of intellect is playing a hand of fear: a fear that perestroika could soon be over and with it the
Soviet willingness to accept a new order of democracy in Europe.
European 25-27 May 1990, p. 9
Yesterday's NEC decision to reduce the clout of the union block vote at conference was a valuable if partial and belated contribution. But as Frank Field knows, you can't get perestroika overnight, particularly when your route to reform requires the assent of the very institutions which need reforming.
Guardian 28 June 1990, p. 18
personal computer
(Science and Technology) see PC
personal equity plan
(Business World) see PEP
personal identification number (Business World) see PIN
personal organizer
noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)
An organizer for keeping track of one's personal affairs (appointments, commitments, finances, etc.), in paper or electronic form: either a loose-leaf notebook with sections for different types of information, pockets for credit cards, pens, etc. (a generic term for Filofax) or an electronic diary and
notebook in the form of a pocket-sized microcomputer or software for a personal computer.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: an organizer for one's personal life.
History and Usage: The transformation of the appointments diary into the personal organizer took place in the early eighties as
the fashion for the Filofax among yuppies encouraged other firms to manufacture similar systems and a name was sought which was not protected as a trade mark. A growing preoccupation with organizing information (especially in the form of electronic
data) coincided in the second half of the eighties with the development of ever smaller computers at affordable prices; the term personal organizer was not yet so firmly associated in the public mind with loose-leaf notebooks as to preclude its application to these electronic organizers as well, a process which began to take place in the late eighties and early nineties.
These busy people all rely on personal organizers--compact, three-ring binders designed to keep track of various aspects of one's life.
Los Angeles Times 20 Aug. 1985, section 4, p. 1
We have given you the chance to get your life back into some sort of shape with the amazing Agenda word processor/personal organizer.
CU Amiga Apr. 1990, p. 71
personkind
noun (People and Society)
The human race; humankind. (Invented as a humorous non-sexist substitute for mankind.)
Etymology: Formed by substituting the non-sexist word person for man in mankind.
History and Usage: It was the feminist movement of the seventies that promoted the word person--both as a freestanding word and as a word-forming element--as the successor to man in its centuries-old broader sense of 'human being'. Many of the formations which resulted, including chairperson (see chair) and
statesperson, appeared awkward or even comical to those who had grown up with the forms ending in -man without ever thinking of them as referring exclusively to males, and the view was not infrequently expressed that the move towards inclusive language had gone too far too fast. It was in this context that the word personkind was coined in the early seventies as a humorous alternative for mankind, intended to ridicule the use of personfor man-. During the eighties, as the feminist view of language became more widely accepted, the word personkind retained a place in the vocabulary of English but remained largely tongue-in-cheek in its use.
Sonja fights for her life and the lives of all personkind.
Video Today Apr. 1986, p. 36
The artificial ring of the new alternatives (like 'personkind') is counterproductive because it is faintly ridiculous to scrupulously avoid all possible references to gender, even when no reference to a particular sex is implied.
Music Technology Apr. 1990, p. 10
person with Aids
(Health and Fitness) (People and Society) see PWA
16.4 p-funk...
p-funk (Music) (Youth Culture) see funk
16.5 phencyclidine...
phencyclidine
(Drugs) see PCP°
phonecard noun Also written phone card or phone-card (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Science and Technology)
In the UK, a plastic card (see card°) providing a specified