The Oxford Dictionary of New Words
.pdflate seventies there was increasing scientific interest in them, which was boosted in the early eighties by the race to find the viral cause of (and ultimately a cure for) Aids. It was this connection with Aids that ensured that the word retrovirus became popularized rather than remaining limited to technical literature; however, although the word appeared in popular sources in the eighties it was probably not as widely understood as this popular usage would suggest. The corresponding adjective is retroviral.
It turns out this virus is a retrovirus, and it's a close, kissing cousin of the AIDS virus.
USA Today 29 Oct. 1990, section A, p. 13
returnik noun (Politics) (People and Society)
An ‚migr‚ from an East European country who has returned home, especially after a change of political regime there.
Etymology: Formed from the verb return and the suffix -nik, on the model of refusenik.
History and Usage: This inventive formation gave a new lease of life to the -nik suffix in English during the second half of the eighties, when the media began to take an interest in the
growing number of ‚migr‚s from the Soviet Union and other East European countries who wished to return once a more democratic government was in power. The phenomenon of returniks had existed before, however: of the people who successfully emigrated from
the Soviet Union, for example, there were always a few who found that their ties to the motherland were so strong that they could
not be happy anywhere else and who tried to find some way to return home even without a change of political regime there.
The Gross family are Returniks--Russians who emigrated to the West and have now decided to return. They...swapped one of the most prestigious New York addresses, Waterside Plaza in Manhattan, for two dingy rooms which the Grosses, who have three children, share with her [Olga's] mother.
Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 17 May 1987, p. 21
Known as the returniks, these natives of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary...are helping manufacture consumer goods and build housing.
Time 2 July 1990, p. 48
18.3 rhythmic gymnastics
rhythmic gymnastics
noun (Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure)
A form of gymnastics which emphasizes rhythmic movement and incorporates dance-like routines, performed with ribbons, hoops, or other accessories, used as extensions of the gymnast's body.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: gymnastics based on rhythmic movement.
History and Usage: Although the phrase rhythmic gymnastics was used as long ago as 1912 to refer to a form of gymnastics based on rhythmic movement, it was not adopted as the official name of a recognized style of gymnastics until the seventies, and this
style only became a sport which was popularized through international competition in the eighties.
Bianca Panova..., the Bulgarian champion, practising...for the Rhythmic Gymnastics International at Wembley Conference Centre tomorrow.
Daily Telegraph 4 Nov. 1989, p. 36
18.4 right-to-life...
right-to-life
adjectival phrase (Health and Fitness) (People and Society)
Especially in US English, concerned to protect the rights of the unborn child and therefore opposed to allowing a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion; pro-life. (A positive
alternative to anti-choice.) Also, seeking to protect the rights
of the terminally ill, people on life-support machines, etc.
Etymology: Formed from the noun phrase the right to life; the focus of the movement is the right of the unborn child to quality of life and the moral responsibility of those who already have life to safeguard the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves. The model for this formation already existed in right-to-die (a similar movement against artificially prolonging the life of those who, because of illness or accident, are unable to have any quality of life).
History and Usage: For the history of the anti-abortion debate in the US, see pro-. Right-to-life fits into this picture as
one of three terms for the anti-abortion lobby, and has been commonly used in the US since the mid seventies. A supporter of this position is a right-to-lifer. Similar moral issues apply to
the debate over the artificial 'life' of those who exist for years on life-support machines, and the movement has also concerned itself with this issue.
The right-to-lifers had to pretty much settle for a mad bomber repping their cause.
Movie Winter 1989, p. 8
RISC |
acronym Also written Risc or risc (Science and Technology) |
Short for reduced instruction set computer, a type of computer designed to perform a limited set of operations, and therefore having relatively simple circuitry and able to work at high speed. Also (short for reduced instruction set computing), computing using this kind of computer; the simplified environment in which it operates.
Etymology: The initial letters of Reduced Instruction Set Computer (or Computing).
History and Usage: Research into the viability of a RISC and its advantages over the traditional approach (complex instruction set computing or CISC) began in the early eighties,
and by 1983 had produced the first commercial products based on this principle. It soon became clear that the greatest advantage was speed, with RISC working at twice the speed of CISC. The
acronym RISC is nearly always used attributively (in RISC architecture, RISC chip, RISC processor, RISC system, etc.); systems, machines, etc. are often described as RISC-based, while the software products with which RISC is used are known as RISCware.
By incompatible microprocessors, I mean the Risc chips: Sparc, Mips, 88000 and 80860 for starters.
PC Magazine July 1989, p. 130
For the same dollar, CISC will deliver only half the performance of RISC.
New York Times 28 Sept. 1989, section D, p. 2
To set standards for RISC-based workstations, MIPS is challenging Sun Microsystems Inc.
New York Times 10 Dec. 1989, section 3, p. 10
The RISCware Product Directory lists 245 software products.
UnixWorld Apr. 1990, p. 91
ritual abuse
(People and Society) see child abuse
18.5 rock...
rock noun (Drugs)
In the slang of drug users, a crystallized form of cocaine which is smoked for its stimulating effects; an earlier name (especially on the West coast of the US) for crack. Also, a piece of crack in its prepared form, ready for smoking.
Etymology: Named after its rock-like appearance and consistency.
History and Usage: Despite suggestions that rock has been in
use among drug users for some time as a name for a piece of crystallized cocaine, the word did not begin to appear in the newspapers or become known to the general public until the middle of the eighties. Then a number of West-coast newspapers reported raids on rock houses (the same as crack houses: see crack). By 1986, crack had become established as the name for the drug itself, and rock seemed to be dying out in this sense, but it remained current as the name for a piece of the drug
ready for smoking.
Four people were arrested and a small cache of weapons and ammunition seized at an Inglewood 'rock house', where cocaine in hardened form was being sold, Los Angeles police announced.
Los Angeles Times 11 Jan. 1985, section 1, p. 2
The 'rock' is...put in a pipe and smoked, with far more potent effects than inhaling the powder.
Daily Telegraph 1 Mar. 1985, p. 15
It's amazing now. You walk around Notting Hill or Stonebridge and you can hardly score ganja any more. All you see is rock and smack...There are certain geezers who go up to someone who's never touched it, give him a rock, and build him up 'til he gets a habit.
Sunday Correspondent 8 Apr. 1990, p. 4
rocket fuel
(Drugs) see angel dust
rockumentary
noun Also written rock-umentary (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Music)
In informal use, a documentary film dealing with the history of rock music or the lives of rock musicians.
Etymology: Formed by replacing the first syllable of
documentary with rock, making use of the rhyme to form a punning blend.
History and Usage: The word was coined by Ernie Santosuosso, a Boston critic, in a review of Beatlemania in 1977, at a time
when the craze for films and television programmes about rock stars of the sixties was a favourite means of bringing rock music to a wider audience. It has remained principally an American word, but by the mid eighties had also been used in British and Australian film criticism. By 1984, rockumentaries were so numerous that a completely fictional one (This is Spinal
Tap, about a British heavy metal group) was made as a parody of the genre.
Spinal Tap lives: the famed 'henge' sequence from the classic 'rockumentary' was recently re-enacted.
Music Making July 1987, p. 6
SBS at 7.30 has what it is billing a 'rock-umentary'--an account of Australian singer Jeannie Lewis' last trip to Mexico.
Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 15 Nov. 1988, p. 28
role-playing game
noun phrase (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture)
A game in which players take on the roles of imaginary characters who take part in adventures in a (usually fantastical) setting.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: a game which involves the playing of a role.
History and Usage: The concept of the role-playing game (often abbreviated to RPG) brings together two much older ideas. The planning of real military campaigns with the aid of boards and counters led earlier this century to an interest in re-enacting famous historical battles, and even completely fictitious ones,
in a similar manner--an activity known as war-gaming, which became particularly popular in the years following the Second World War. The second idea grew out of psychotherapy, which also enjoyed something of a vogue in the sixties: the technique of role-playing, devised by the Viennese psychiatrist J. L. Moreno
in the forties, whereby people were encouraged to act out
dramatic roles. The technique spread to other fields, and the phrase became generally familiar, so that in the later
seventies, when several games appeared which allowed players to immerse themselves more fully in the imaginary setting than had been possible in conventional war-gaming, the name role-playing game came readily to mind. Perhaps the best known of these is Dungeons and Dragons, which like many such games has a fantasy setting. What makes such games distinctive, however, is not the setting--other games draw on science fiction, ancient Rome, and even gangster novels for their inspiration--but the extent to
which the adventure is made as 'realistic' as possible: the setting is painstakingly created in great detail, often by a referee or Dungeon Master, and the behaviour of the players' assumed characters is controlled by a welter of rules designed to make the experience believable. Players do not necessarily 'win'--the enjoyment derives from vicariously 'living' another, more exciting life. During the early eighties gaming of this sort was consequently condemned as escapism, but it has flourished despite such criticism; indeed, the appearance of the home computer, and of software allowing still more realistic role-play, has vastly increased its popularity.
With role-playing games, the position is different. The rules explain how to generate characters.
White Dwarf Oct.-Nov. 1981, p. 8
CoC [Call of Cthulhu] is a classic RPG...casting its shadow over the whole gaming industry.
GM Nov. 1989, p. 18
roof tax noun (Business World) (Politics)
In the UK, a derogatory nickname for any property-based replacement for the community charge or poll tax.
Etymology: Formed by compounding; whereas the poll tax is a tax on heads (see poll tax), the roof tax taxes people on the roof
over their heads.
History and Usage: The nickname roof tax first arose as a Conservative retort to Labour politicians' attacks on the
|
community charge and their insistence on calling it a poll tax; |
|
any Labour government, they said, would remove the community |
|
charge only to replace it with an even more unfair roof tax, |
|
based on the same principles as the old rating system. When the |
|
Conservative government announced its review of the community |
|
charge in April 1991 and it became clear that the proposed new |
|
council tax was likely to be based--at least in part--on |
|
property ownership, Labour politicians were able to turn the |
|
taunt back on the taunters, calling the council tax a roof tax |
|
(as well as a great many other names). |
|
The worst outcome would be Labour's roof tax which, by |
|
combining a property tax with one on incomes, really |
|
could be used to squeeze the rich. |
|
The Times 8 Mar. 1990, p. 14 |
roots |
plural noun (Music) |
|
Ethnic origins seen as a basis for cultural consciousness and |
|
pride, especially among Blacks; often used attributively as |
|
though it were an adjective: expressing this cultural identity, |
|
ethnically authentic. |
|
Etymology: The word root has been used in the plural to mean |
|
'one's social, cultural, or ethnic origins or background' since |
|
the twenties; the shift in meaning that has led to the word's |
|
association with (specifically Black) cultural heritage probably |
|
arose from the popularity of Black American author Alex Haley's |
|
family chronicle Roots (1976), based on research into his own |
|
family history and African origins, which won a special Pulitzer |
|
prize in 1977. |
|
History and Usage: This more specific sense of roots developed |
|
during the late seventies, perhaps as a direct result of the |
|
success of the Haley book. At about the same time it started to |
|
be used attributively, especially in roots reggae (a style of |
|
music originating in Jamaica which was designed to express |
|
Jamaican cultural identity) or roots music (sometimes meaning |
|
the same as roots reggae, but often applied more generally to |
|
any music which expresses the cultural identity of a particular |
|
ethnic group--ethnic music--or has the authentic sound |
|
associated with Black cultural origins). |
For the DJ, crossing over is more than simply a move from roots to respectability or even from black to white audiences.
City Limits 16 Oct. 1986, p. 41
Biddy's will continue its prior booking policy--an eclectic blend of oldies acts, roots music, world beat and other styles.
Chicago Tribune 25 Aug. 1989, section 7, p. 8
rootsy adjective (Music) (Youth Culture)
(Of music) down-to-earth; in a rudimentary, uncommercialized style which allows traditional or ethnic roots to show through.
Etymology: Formed by adding the adjectival suffix -y to roots.
History and Usage: Rootsy shares its early history with roots above, but developed a rather broader meaning during the eighties, moving outside the narrow context of Black or West Indian cultural awareness. Any music (or sometimes another area of culture) can be described as rootsy if it has an authentic
feel, without the rough edges having been smoothed off by commercialism.
I'm not here to put any new innovations on you...I'm still using things that are already there: the basic American rootsy sound with country and blues and so forth.
Los Angeles Times 21 May 1986, section 6, p. 2
He went from the depth-charged super-funk of 'Head', straight into the buoyant and rootsy pop of 'When You Were Mine'.
The Times 26 July 1988, p. 14
Royal Free disease
(Health and Fitness) see ME
18.6 RPG
RPG |
(Lifestyle and Leisure) (Youth Culture) see role-playing game |
18.7 Rubik...
Rubik noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)
Part of the name of a number of mathematical puzzles devised by Hungarian teacher E. Rubik; originally Rubik's cube, the trade mark of a puzzle consisting of a cube built round a double fulcrum from 26 smaller cubes of which each visible face shows one of six colours, each layer of nine cubes being capable of rotation in its own plane, the task being to restore each face
of the larger cube to a single colour after the uniformity has been destroyed by rotating any of the layers.
Etymology: The surname of the inventor.
History and Usage: Rubik's cube was first marketed under this name in 1980 (it had originally been called the Magic Cube), and immediately enjoyed great commercial success, sparking off a craze of similar proportions to the ones later caused by Transformers and Turtles. Rubik's puzzles (the cube was later followed by Rubik's triangle and other puzzles on the same principle) attracted adults as well as children.
Buv”s Kocka--the Magic Cube, also known as Rubik's Cube--has simultaneously taken the puzzle world, the mathematics world and the computing world by storm.
Scientific American Mar. 1981, p. 14
The life of the modern toy designer is an unending search for the next...Rubik's Cube, the next teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Smithsonian Dec. 1989, p. 73
Rule 43 noun (People and Society)