The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

from M. Gell-Man's theory of sub-atomic particles called quarks (after a line in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, 'Three quarks for Muster Mark!', but pronounced to the theory as it developed in the seventies, are bound together by the colour force carried by massless gluons (so named because they act as a kind of sub-atomic glue). The idea that under certain conditions the quarks and gluons would become mixed into a kind of plasma, called a quagma, was postulated in the mid eighties.

Theory suggests that when the density of energy in nuclear matter is high enough, the quarks and gluons will no longer remain confined but will form a quagma.

New Scientist 3 Mar. 1988, p. 45

quark (Science and Technology) see quagma

quilling noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)

The art or craft of paper filigree, in which elaborate pictures and designs are built up from curled strips of paper.

Etymology: Formed by adding the action suffix -ing to the verb quill 'to form (ribbon, etc.) into small cylindrical plaits or curls'. The word quilling has been in use since the eighteenth century in the sense 'a ribbon, strip of lace or other material gathered into small cylindrical folds'.

History and Usage: Quilling is a traditional craft, practised as paper filigree in the UK and as quill work in parts of the US for decades or even centuries. Like a number of other traditional crafts, though, it began to be promoted outside the small community in which it was traditionally practised during the seventies and benefited from the revival of interest in crafts which took place during the late seventies and eighties. In this revived use, the name given to the craft throughout the

English-speaking world was quilling, and the word soon passed from technical terminology into more widespread usage. A practitioner of quilling is a quiller.

Quillers have used all varieties of paper...In modern quilling, the choice of colors is broad.

Quorn--should be in the shops during this year.

Financial Times 7 Jan. 1987, p. 11

Where Quorn scores over these other meat alternatives is that its plant fibres are almost identical in size to

the fibres in meat, which produces the similar texture and eating quality.

Fitness May 1988, p. 29

18.0R

18.1racquet abuse...

racquet abuse see abuse

In young people's slang (especially in the US): really good or exciting; 'cool', 'hip', awesome.

Etymology: Formed by abbreviating radical, itself a favourite term of approval among American youngsters in the eighties and originally (like tubular) a word used in Californian surfers' slang. Such slang terms of approval often get abbreviated to a snappy monosyllable--in the UK brilliant became brill by the same process.

History and Usage: The longer form radical was used from the late sixties by surfers to describe a turn or other manoeuvre that was at the limits of control and safety, presumably by extending the political sense of the adjective 'representing the extreme section of a party'; this specific surfers' use was interpreted as the equivalent of far out and, like far out

itself some time earlier, was soon weakened to express no more than approval and admiration for something. In the early eighties, as Californian surfers' slang became diluted and spread to a generation of young Americans through films and

Valspeak, radical and the abbreviated form rad began to crop up frequently as the currently fashionable accolade. By the middle of the decade it had spread outside the US as well; its popularity in the UK, especially among the very young, was fed by American television shows, comics, and the craze for the Turtles in the late eighties.

Kim Robb...sat down with a group of Prairie teenagers to discuss things that were 'cool'...'The word now,' says Robb,...'is rad.'

Maclean's 6 Sept. 1982, p. 48

The raddest moments on Louder Than Love sound like the raddest moments on the Cult's Sonic Temple.

Spin Oct. 1989, p. 99

radical (Health and Fitness) see free radical

radical hard SF

(Lifestyle and Leisure) see cyberpunk

radicchio noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)

A type of chicory with reddish-purple white-veined leaves, used as a salad vegetable and as a decorative garnish.

Etymology: A direct borrowing from Italian radicchio 'chicory'; this variety of chicory originally comes from Italy.

History and Usage: The move towards a greater variety of fresh raw vegetables in British and American cooking was one of the beneficial results of the fashion for nouvelle cuisine (see nouvelle) in the late seventies and early eighties. Radicchio satisfied the desire of the health-conscious for more

interesting salad vegetables as well as offering colour to those more concerned with the aesthetic quality and presentation of the food; it therefore became a regular feature of restaurant fare and food-market stock by about the middle of the decade. Since Italian spelling conventions are not completely self-explanatory to English speakers, some try to pronounce the word, using an English -ch- sound for the last consonant.

The big public market specializes in...sophisticated imports from rice to radicchio.

St Louis Post-Dispatch 28 May 1986, section D, p. 1

Superb spring rolls filled with radicchio, mozzarella and salsa.

Vogue Sept. 1990, p. 192

ragazine noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture)

In US media slang, a cheaply produced news-sheet or magazine devoted to the dissemination of gossip.

Etymology: Formed by telescoping rag (a contemptuous word for a cheap or worthless newspaper) and magazine to make a blend.

History and Usage: The word was coined in relation to a publication called Hollywood Kids, designed to spread gossip about who was doing what in Hollywood, which first appeared in the mid eighties.

The Hollywood Kids is a ten-page 'ragazine' which prints tall tales like the ones outlined above.

Empire Sept. 1989, p. 32

You wanna be a gossip columnist? Dish the dirt in your own eponymous, Xeroxed 'ragazine'.

Los Angeles Times 9 Mar. 1990, section E, p. 1

In young people's slang, especially in Australia:

noun: A party, a good time.

intransitive verb: To revel, to have a good time. Also as an agent noun rager, a party-goer or reveller.

Etymology: An extended use of rage in its figurative sense 'to be violent or boisterous, to rush', probably passing through an intermediate stage when it meant 'to go on a spree'.

History and Usage: This is an Australian usage which became established in the early eighties; it came to prominence outside Australia as well, largely as a result of the popularity of Australian soap operas and other television series in the UK in the second half of the eighties.

The Roxy churns out an endless stream of disco, dancing, and drinking, tailor-made for young working people who...are looking for 'a rage'.

Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 26 June 1986, Supplement, p. 8

'I still go out and rage occasionally,' says the former sidekick to Greg Evans..., 'but I can't do it like I used to, not five nights a week.'

TV Week (Melbourne) 28 Mar. 1987, p. 4

rah-rah skirt

noun Also written ra-ra skirt (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture)

A very short flounced skirt, similar in design to the type worn by American cheer-leaders.

Etymology: So named because it is the type of skirt worn by a rah-rah girl or cheer-leader, who is herself named after the chorus of rah-rah-rah with which she cheers on her team.

History and Usage: The rah-rah skirt came into fashion in 1982 as the first really successful attempt to revive the mini-skirt

of the sixties, but its success was largely limited to a restricted clientele of slim teenage girls. The participation of

British teams in the World League of American football, complete with their own teams of cheer-leaders, could perpetuate the fashion.

For evening, the bomber jacket was worked in black satin and leather, with floaty chiffon ra-ra skirts.

Daily Telegraph 19 Mar. 1991, p. 2

A style of popular music, originally from North Africa, which fuses Arabic and Algerian ethnic or folk elements with Western styles.

History and Usage: Like zouk, rai was popularized on the world music scene in Paris during the second half of the eighties.

Look for Stevie Wonder to introduce America to the latest music rage sweeping northern Africa. Called rai...the sound is described as space-age Arabic folk music.

People 24 Feb. 1986, p. 29

rainbow coalition noun (Politics)

In political jargon (originally in the US): an alliance of

minority peoples and other disadvantaged groups, acting together in an election or political forum so as to gain greater

recognition for their cause.

Etymology: Formed by compounding: a coalition of people of many colours (summed up by the image of a rainbow).

History and Usage: The idea of the rainbow coalition originated in the Southern US in 1982 and was first widely written about in the early eighties, when liberal groups (and in particular the Democratic Party's Jesse Jackson, trying for a presidential nomination) put forward the idea that racial minorities, disadvantaged White groups, and women's interests could be combined to form a potentially powerful political pressure group. By the middle of the decade the imagery, at least, had spread to the UK, where the term was used to refer to possible coalitions of parties of differing political colours (such as

the possibility of co-operation between the Liberal-Social Democrat Alliance and Labour).

typewriters of 100 literate Rambos, a boycott of the airport was the most reasonable act suggested.

Washington Post 6 July 1985, section A, p. 19

To lawyers, as to other Americans, Ronald Reagan apparently has become the stars and stripes for ever. By his own oft-stated, Rambo-like standards, the hostage crisis was a downer. There was none of the threatened 'swift and effective retribution'.

Washington Post 9 July 1985, section A, p. 2

Sensitive to charges of encouraging a new generation of Rambos, the companies organising the games insist more excitement than aggression is stimulated.

Guardian 3 July 1989, p. 20

One of the first victims, World War 2 veteran Pat Surgrue, was attacked by a 2.5m 'rambo' roo [kangaroo] on his front lawn.

Australasian Post 17 Feb. 1990, p. 14

noun: A style of popular music (also known more fully as rap music) in which (usually improvised) words are spoken rhythmically, often in rhyming sentences, over an instrumental backing. Also, a song or piece of music which incorporates this technique; an individual 'poem' or refrain in this style.

intransitive verb: To perform rap music; to talk or sing in the style of rap. Also as an action noun rapping; agent noun rapper.

Etymology: A specialized development of the US slang sense of the noun and verb rap '(to) talk', which itself dates from the

turn of the century. This had already been taken up by US Blacks in the sixties as a name for the special style of verbal repartee which developed as an important part of their street culture and peer-group behaviour (see diss); the transformation

of rapping of this kind into a type of performance poetry which could be associated with a particular style of popular music completed the process of specialization.

History and Usage: Rap, an important element of the youth subculture known as hip hop, developed among Black youngsters on the streets of New York during the seventies, but did not become

a recognizable genre of popular music known by this name until the early eighties. Rap has links with other more formal styles of Black (especially West Indian) performance poetry known as dub and toasting, which began to reach a wide audience in the seventies as a result of the popularization of West Indian culture through reggae and ska. At first the New York raps themselves were improvised live over the rhythmic backing of music from a boom box or ghetto blaster; in the early eighties the style was taken up by disc jockeys in New York's clubs, and a number of rap groups recorded the music and enjoyed great

commercial success with it, popularizing rap within White youth culture as well as Black and establishing it as one of the most important styles of the eighties. The influence of rapping is evident in a number of areas outside Black culture, such as the language and creative writing of young Whites in the UK (words such as bad, def, diss, fresh, and rare might never have spread beyond a quite limited population of young people but for their use in rap); another sign of rap's influence is the fact that distinct styles (such as rude rap and on-and-on rap) are

recognized among groups of youngsters far removed from rap's New York origins.

Many raps still brag about the rapper's financial success and superior cool but others talk about such topics as friends and basketball.

Wall Street Journal 4 Dec. 1984, p. 16

But when he realised that black classmates were listening to a different rap group each week he decided that rap was much more progressive than rock 'n' roll.

New Musical Express 9 May 1987, p. 30

Cartel distributors, Revolver, have great hopes for the...hip-hop EP...consisting of 'Anyone', 'The Dark'