The Oxford Dictionary of New Words
.pdfHistory and Usage: The phrase seems to have come originally from shampoo or detergent advertising, although it has also been suggested that it was used by army sergeant majors of boots and other surfaces that had to be so highly polished that they squeaked. The first figurative uses date from the mid seventies. To describe a politician or some other public figure as squeaky clean is perhaps not altogether a compliment: it can certainly imply disappointment on the part of the person using it that the personality concerned is unlikely to be the subject of any scandal, and sometimes it also implies an image that is hard to believe, or 'too good to be true'.
Squeaky-clean in body and mind, the Preppy is the class swot and jolly-good-all-rounder all grown up.
Sunday Express Magazine 17 Sept. 1989, p. 18
Mr Pearson maintained...control over every aspect of his children's rise to fame as squeaky clean pop group Five Star.
Punch 13 July 1990, p. 33
19.14 SRINF
SRINF (War and Weaponry) see INF
19.15 Stalkergate...
Stalkergate
(Politics) see -gate
standard assessment task
(People and Society) see national curriculum
starch blocker
noun (Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure)
A dietary preparation that supposedly affects a person's metabolism of starch so that it does not contribute to a gain in weight.
Etymology: Formed by compounding: supposedly a blocker of starch metabolism.
History and Usage: Starch blockers were first introduced in the US in 1981 and for a short time provoked a good deal of journalistic interest. However, the scientific basis of the claims made for these products was soon debunked.
Slimmers who use starch blockers...are wasting their money.... Experts...say they do not affect the quantity of starch digested and could have unpleasant effects if they did work.
Daily Telegraph 14 Apr. 1983, p. 6
1982: The FDA cracked down on starch blockers, a diet fad that purportedly prevented the body from digesting starch calories.
Life Fall 1989, p. 64
start-up noun Also written startup (Business World)
A business enterprise that is in the process of starting up. Also known more fully as a start-up company.
Etymology: A more concrete use of the noun start-up, which previously meant 'the action or process of starting up'.
History and Usage: This usage arose in US business writing in the second half of the seventies. With the encouragement of small businesses in the UK which marked the enterprise culture of the early eighties, it also became a feature of British business language. Start-up is often used attributively (in start-up loan, start-up scheme, etc.), but in these cases it is used in its older sense of 'the process of starting up (a business)'.
The company is a relatively rare thing for Europe: a successful high-technology start-up.
Economist 24 Mar. 1990, p. 129
Nixdorf supported the development of a loosely coupled, fault-tolerant multiprocessor technology at a New Jersey-based startup named Auragen Systems.
UnixWorld Apr. 1990, p. 39
Star Wars noun Also written star wars (War and Weaponry)
A colloquial nickname for the programme known officially as the Strategic Defense Initiative (abbreviation SDI), a military defence strategy proposed by US President Reagan in 1983, in which enemy weapons would be destroyed in space by lasers, antiballistic missiles, etc., launched or directed from orbiting military satellites.
Etymology: A nickname based on the title of a popular science-fiction film released in 1977 and involving similar weapons; this film was, according to Halliwell's Film Guide, 'a phenomenon and one of the top grossers of all time', and it was therefore prominent in the public consciousness at the time when President Reagan made his proposals.
History and Usage: The nickname Star Wars was applied to President Reagan's proposals for a high-technology space-based defence system almost as soon as he had made them in a nationwide television address in March 1983. At first it was used somewhat scathingly, pointing to the fact that the
technology required for such a system had not yet been developed and expressing the view that it might prove as fictional as the film. Funding for the project was eventually voted through Congress by the middle of the decade, but there was enduring criticism of the whole idea, especially since it appeared to contravene existing antiballistic missile treaties and seemed
more likely to contribute to the arms race than to end it (as President Reagan had supposed).
The first question is one of commitment: whether Ronald Reagan understands what it takes to nudge a doubting, cash-short nation into serious consideration of his star wars defense concept.
Time 4 Apr. 1983, p. 19
The only reason Star Wars happened is that the staff erred and allowed Edward Teller and a small group of conservatives from the Heritage Foundation who were behind it to get to Reagan.
Life Fall 1989, p. 56
Stasi noun Sometimes written STASI (Politics)
The internal security force (until 1989-90) of the German Democratic Republic.
Etymology: Formed from two of the syllables of the full name, STAatsSIcherheitsdienst 'State Security Service'.
History and Usage: Stasi was the colloquial name in German of the feared East German secret police for a number of decades before it became popularly known in English. It was used in spy novels etc. written in English during the sixties and seventies, but ironically it was its demise in 1989-90 that really brought
it into the headlines and gave it a wider currency. News reports of the breakdown of the Communist system in the GDR included coverage of popular demonstrations against the Stasi
and demands for its abolition; its offices were reduced and many of its employees dismissed in December 1989 (more than 100,000 agents had been sacked by February 1990) and by March 1990 the Spy section was being cut down drastically as well.
The mood has become tense in the past week with mounting warning strikes and calls for the Stasi to be rooted out
for good.
The Times 16 Jan. 1990, p. 1
He had received information that CDU leader de MaiziŠre had himself been a Stasi informer.
Maclean's 2 Apr. 1990, p. 31
statesperson
noun (Politics)
A statesman or stateswoman. (Invented as a generic term to avoid sexism.)
Etymology: Formed by substituting the non-sexist -person for -man or -woman.
History and Usage: The term was invented by the media in the second half of the seventies, and at first was in practice more or less limited to references to stateswomen: Indira Gandhi and, a little later, Margaret Thatcher were the people most often referred to as statespersons. By the end of the eighties,
though, it was starting to be used of statesmen as well.
Contributors to the diary's current competition (see
below) may like to know that somebody wants Our Greatest Statesperson to have some free history lessons. Namely, Mike Harris, a Labour member of Barnet council, embracing Mrs Thatcher's seat (Finchley, that is, I rush
to point out).
Guardian 10 Aug. 1989, p. 19
Genscher has become Europe's senior statesperson.
New Yorker 23 Oct. 1989, p. 104
Stealth noun (War and Weaponry)
A branch of military technology in the US concerned with making aircraft and weapons hard for the enemy to detect by radar or other sensing systems; usually used attributively, in Stealth aircraft, Stealth bomber, Stealth technology, etc.
Etymology: A specialized use of an old sense of stealth 'furtive or underhand action, an act accomplished by eluding observation or discovery' (a sense which survives in modern English mainly in the phrase by stealth).
History and Usage: The development of Stealth technology (known more formally as low observable technology) first gained
official backing in the US in the second half of the seventies.
Its most famous example, the Stealth bomber or B2 bomber, was developed amid great secrecy during the eighties and was first
seen in operation by the general public during the Gulf War of January-February 1991. Detection is avoided by the use of a shape with proportions and angles that are not easily visible on radar, materials which evade infrared sensing, etc.
Key technologies that have been identified are the following: Stealth technology. Engines and fuels. Avionics.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 29 Jan. 1979, p. 121
Microprose produced an F-19 simulation on the PC at a time when the B2 stealth bomber hadn't even been glimpsed.
CU Amiga Apr. 1990, p. 12
steaming noun (People and Society)
In British teenagers' slang: the activity of passing rapidly in a gang through a public place, robbing bystanders by force of numbers.
Etymology: Probably related to the Cockney slang phrase steam in 'to start or join a fight'; it has been claimed that the term
came from US street slang, but there is little evidence to support this.
History and Usage: The phenomenon of steaming first started to be reported in the newspapers in the UK in 1987-8, when there was a spate of incidents of this kind on trains and buses, and also at large public gatherings such as street carnivals. The
verb steam (which is used intransitively or transitively) has been back-formed from the noun; a person who takes part in steaming is a steamer.
Video tapes of the two-day carnival are being studied in an attempt to trace 'steamers', who ran en masse through the crowds, stealing at random.
The Times 9 Sept. 1987, p. 7
Frightening for its victims, steaming is also proving to
be a difficult crime to prevent, and very expensive, in both manpower and financial terms, to stamp out.
Sunday Times 21 Feb. 1988, section A, p. 18
Stinger noun (War and Weaponry)
The name (more fully Stinger missile) of a lightweight, shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile developed in the US and incorporating an infrared homing device.
Etymology: Presumably a figurative use of stinger in the sense 'something that stings or smarts'.
History and Usage: The Stinger missile system was developed by General Dynamics and other contractors in the US in the second half of the seventies. Being light in weight and shoulder-launched, it proved an ideal form of anti-aircraft
missile for guerrilla warfare. The use of Stingers by rebels against Soviet and Afghan government aircraft in Afghanistan brought them into the news in the second half of the eighties.
The Pentagon told Congress Wednesday it intends to sell Saudi Arabia 400 ground-to-air Stinger missile systems along with 1,200 missiles.
Christian Science Monitor 2 Mar. 1984, p. 2
The transfer of the Stingers to the
counter-revolutionary bands, which use these missiles to down civilian aircraft, is simply immoral and totally unjustifiable.
Mikhail Gorbachev Perestroika (English translation, 1987), p. 177
store option card
(Business World) see card°
storming adjective (Youth Culture)
In British slang: outstanding in vigour, speed, or skill; 'cracking'.
Etymology: Formed on the verb storm, probably as a transferred use of the military sense 'to make a vigorous assault on; to
take by storm'.
History and Usage: This sense of storming was a feature mainly of sport reports and tabloid journalism from the seventies onwards; in the same sources, a stormer was anything that could be described in the superlative: something very large, very successful, or very good. When, during the Gulf War of early 1991, the tabloid papers in the UK described the US Commander
General Norman Schwarzkopf as Stormin' Norman, they were taking advantage of both the rhyme and the pun with the military sense
of storm from which this adjective derives.
The outstanding performer in the open was Stuart Evans who had a storming game.
Rugby News Mar. 1987, p. 2
There are conflicting views on whether Gen Schwarzkopf...deserves the nickname 'Stormin' Norman', which he detests.
Independent 18 Feb. 1991, p. 3
Strategic Defense Initiative
(War and Weaponry) see Star Wars
street cred
(Youth Culture) see cred°
string |
(Science and Technology) see superstring |
STS |
(Science and Technology) see shuttle |
19.16 sugar-free...
sugar-free
(Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure) see -free
suit |
noun (Business World) (Politics) |
In business jargon, a manager or boss; someone who wears a suit to work (rather than overalls, a uniform, etc.). Also in
political contexts (especially in the phrase men in (dark or grey) suits), a faceless bureaucrat; an elder statesman or senior civil servant who acts as a political adviser.
Etymology: In both cases, a reference to the fact that the characteristic dress of these people singles them out for what they are (although, of course, many other people wear a suit!).
History and Usage: Suit was a slang term for a member of the management or officialdom which in the mid eighties took on a new lease of life in a number of phrases to do with men in suits. The idea of the men in grey suits who ultimately had the
power to bring about the downfall of a Prime Minister was made much of by journalists in connection with the leadership contest within the Conservative Party and the eventual resignation of Margaret Thatcher in December 1990.
Major's spectacular ordinariness--the Treasury is now led by 'a man in a suit' whose most distinguishing feature is his spectacles.
Observer 29 Oct. 1989, p. 28
Blaming the 'suits' is a national pastime. If a traffic cop has a faulty search warrant or a flat tyre, he curses the 'suits' at headquarters.
The Times 14 Mar. 1990, p. 16
I claim paternity of 'the men in suits' from an Observer column of the mid-1980s. Not, you may notice, the men in dark suits, still less those in grey ones, which gives
quite the wrong idea.
Alan Watkins in Spectator 1 Dec. 1990, p. 7
Margaret Thatcher was brought down by a brief, tacit alliance of 'men in grey suits' and Thatcher loyalists.
Sunday Telegraph 25 Nov. 1990, p. 23
suitor noun (Business World)
In financial jargon, a prospective buyer of a business corporation; a person or institution making a take-over bid.
Etymology: A figurative use of suitor in the sense of 'a person who seeks a woman's hand in marriage'. Such metaphors are common in the financial world: compare daisy chain°, dawn raid, poison pill, and white knight.
History and Usage: Originally an American colloquial usage of the seventies, suitor had spread into British use by 1980 and during the eighties became a standard way of referring to a prospective buyer, no longer thought of as colloquial in financial circles. Its use in the newspapers and the media generally brought it to a wider and more popular audience.
Lifting the veil of secrecy was ordinarily enough to kill a developing buyout in its cradle: once disclosed, corporate raiders or other unwanted suitors were free to make a run at the company be fore management had a chance to prepare its own bid.
Bryan Burrough & John Helyar Barbarians at the Gate (1990), p. 8
superparticle
(Science and Technology) see superstring
superstring
noun (Science and Technology)
In physics, the form taken by sub-atomic particles according to superstring theory, a theory devised to account for the interactions of particles by viewing them as one-dimensional objects resembling tiny pieces of string.
Etymology: Formed by adding the prefix superin the sense 'supersymmetric' to string (see below).
History and Usage: Quantum theory and general relativity are two major developments which have taken place in physics this