The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

be pronounced separately, it acquired derivatives such as the verb defined above, the adjective VCR'd (provided with a VCR, recorded on VCR), and the noun VCR-ing.

It's tempting to conclude that docs are automatically

big draws in a four-TV channel (although heavily VCR'd) nation [the UK].

Los Angeles Times 13 Nov. 1986, section 6, p. 10

The VCR-ing of America: videocassettes have fast-forwarded into our lives.

headline in Los Angeles Times 28 Dec. 1986, calendar section, p. 2

Nothing they do in the Winter Olympics reminds me of the torture I went through in phys ed class. So I'll be

watching or VCRing every minute.

People 15 Feb. 1988, p. 9

22.3 vegeburger...

vegeburger

noun Also written veggie burger (Lifestyle and Leisure)

A flat savoury cake (similar in form to a hamburger but containing vegetables or soya protein rather than meat), sometimes served in a bread bun.

Etymology: Formed by replacing the first syllable of hamburger with the first two syllables of vegetable. As in the case of beefburger, the formation is based on the false assumption that the hamof hamburger names a kind of meat, whereas in fact it

is a shortening of Hamburger steak and comes from the place-name Hamburg. The form veggie burger probably represents 'vegetarian burger', since in US English veggie is a well-known colloquial abbreviation of vegetarian.

History and Usage: The vegeburger was 'invented' in the early seventies and by 1980 had been registered as a trade mark in a

number of different spellings. At first, this kind of burger tended to be available only in health-food outlets, but the success of the animal rights and green movements meant that a meat-free diet became more generally acceptable during the eighties, and the vegeburger more widely available.

Free festivals are market-places for everything hippies most like to sell, from hashish to vegeburgers.

Listener 12 June 1986, p. 16

Fantastic Foods...offers everything from instant soups sans meat to veggie burger mix, vegetarian chili and tofu stroganoff.

Chicago Tribune 9 Aug. 1990, section 7, p. 4

venture noun (Business World)

In business jargon, enterprise that involves a substantial degree of risk or speculation, particularly the financing of small new businesses. Used especially in compounds:

venture arbitrage, risk arbitrage; the activity of an arb;

venture buyout, a buyout financed by risk capital;

venture capital, risk capital; money that is put up for speculative investment;

venture capitalism, the system or practice of investment based on risk capital, especially in new and innovative high-capital projects; the activity of a venture capitalist.

Etymology: A business or enterprise that has a substantial risk of loss as well as gain has been known as a venture since the sixteenth century; the compounds defined here extend that concrete sense into something more abstract: the whole practice of founding business on risk and speculation.

History and Usage: The idea of venture capital is not at all new--the term has been used since the forties--but the whole area of venture capitalism grew and developed in a new way in

the US during the sixties and seventies and the UK during the early eighties, giving rise to new uses for venture in compounds. The main reasons for the change were the growth of risk arbitrage (for history, see under arb) and the official

encouragement of small businesses (see enterprise culture) which took place at this time. For the first time, venture capitalism became a profession in its own right, with individuals and institutions which specialized in it alone; this happened first

in the US and was mirrored in the UK and Australia a decade or so later. Organizations providing venture capital were seen as the foundation on which business growth could be built, since it was these organizations that funded the small firms trying to market the results of the technological revolution.

A shoeshine boy had been working the crowd near their table...'This is venture capitalism, Warren. Be supportive.'

William Garner Rats' Alley (1984), p. 146

'Venture capitalism is basically placing equity-oriented capital in businesses that have prospects for high and rapid capital expansion,' explained the businesswoman.

Chicago Tribune 28 Oct. 1985, p. 20

Following the MBO has come, for example, the venture buyout and the buy-in.

Daily Telegraph 30 Oct. 1989, Management Buyouts

Supplement, p. vi

The wider issues that are generally ignored in the brutal world of town planners and venture capitalists.

Vogue Sept. 1990, p. 376

22.4 video nasty...

video nasty

(Lifestyle and Leisure) (People and Society) see nasty

the computer virus to replicate itself within the computer system, just as a biological virus multiplies within an organism.

History and Usage: Like the worm, the computer virus was originally a concept of science fiction: it was used in David Gerrold's book When Harlie was One (1972), and also in John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider in 1975 (see the inset quotation under worm). The first real virus was the subject of a computer science experiment in November 1983, presented by American computer scientist F. Cohen to a seminar on computer security. When Cohen had introduced the concept to the seminar, the name virus was apparently suggested by Len Adleman, and the results of the experiment were demonstrated a week later:

The initial infection was implanted in 'vd', a program that displays Unix structures graphically, and introduced to users via the system bulletin board...The virus was implanted at the beginning of the program so that it was performed before any other processing...In each of five attacks, all system rights were granted to the attacker in under an hour.

By the second half of the eighties the virus had become a serious hazard to individual and corporate computer users; because the code copies itself into the computer's memory and then causes havoc, it became advisable to avoid using floppy discs which might conceivably contain a virus--freeware and discs supplied by clubs, for example. Considerable financial loss was suffered as a result of the epidemic, not to mention research time and valuable data: in one famous incident, London's Royal National Institute for the Blind temporarily lost six months' worth of research after being attacked by a virus contained in files on a floppy disc. A number of software companies began to offer virus detection programs and 'good' viruses which could guard against infection (this kind of virus was sometimes known as a vigilante virus).

It's easy to build malicious viruses which duplicate themselves and then erase data files. Just as easy to create a virus that lies dormant for months and then erupts some day in the future.

Clifford Stoll The Cuckoo's Egg (1989), p. 29

The debate over vigilante viruses is part of a broader discussion now taking place among some computer researchers and programmers over what is being termed 'forbidden knowledge'.

New York Times 7 Oct. 1989, p. 35

Comprehensive virus detection and removal features to protect your software investment. Works with all presently known viruses.

CU Amiga Apr. 1990, p. 70

See also logic bomb and Trojan

visualization

noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)

The technique of forming a mental picture or vision of something (particularly of a hoped-for event or outcome to a situation) as

a psychological aid to confidence and achievement.

Etymology: Formed by adding the noun suffix -ation to the verb visualize 'make visible, form an image of'.

History and Usage: As a psychological term, visualization has been in use for most of the twentieth century, but has enjoyed a particular fashion in the fields of sports psychology and New Age philosophy in the eighties.

A crystal that, combined with visualization, can be used like a pair of scissors or a knife, is the laser wand.

Soozi Holbeche The Power of Gems & Crystals (1989), p. 93

Most competitors down the years have thought roughly about what they intended to do...Now visualisation of what is going to happen from the moment of arrival at the arena, through the warm-up process and then through every throw or jump is part of the detailed preparation

by Backley and May. Backley describes it as self-hypnosis.

Guardian 5 Aug. 1989, p. 19

22.5 Vodafone...

Vodafone noun Also written Vodaphone (Lifestyle and Leisure)

The trade mark of a cellular telephone system, one of two originally operating in the UK. Also, the equipment itself; a cellular telephone handset.

Etymology: Formed by combining the first two letters of voice, the first two letters of data, and a respelled version of phone.

History and Usage: The Vodafone system was introduced by Racal in the mid eighties.

Optional extras include an eardrum-shattering quadrophonic in-car stereo, car phone and constantly bleeping radiopager. It's not unusual for the biggest poseurs to be blabbing into their Vodaphones with one hand and snapping away [taking photographs] with the other.

Guardian 26 July 1989, p. 21

vogueing noun Also written voguing (Lifestyle and Leisure)

A type of dance or mime performed to popular music (usually house) and designed to imitate the characteristic postures of a fashion model on a catwalk; a form of club entertainment based on this.

Etymology: Named after the fashion magazine Vogue: the idea is to pose and posture as if having one's picture taken for Vogue magazine.

History and Usage: Vogueing originated in the Black and Puerto Rican gay community of New York, and started to be enjoyed as a more widespread form of club entertainment in 1988, spreading

outside the US to Europe and the UK. It involves very little actual movement--the feet remain more or less on the same spot while different poses of the body, arms, legs, and face are taken up every few beats--and is often competitive, with 'judges' assessing the effect.

Willie Leake...directed the Voguing segment of 'An Evening Devoted to House Music and Voguing' at El Museo del Barrio...'Voguing,' the program notes explained, 'is

an underground club form of entertainment which appropriates and subverts the images, fashion and music prevalent in mainstream culture.'

New Yorker 16 Jan. 1989, p. 26

voice over

transitive verb (Lifestyle and Leisure)

To provide (a television programme, commercial, etc.) with a commentary spoken by an unseen narrator (often a famous actor or other person whose voice is well known); to dub over (a soundtrack) with another, more famous voice.

Etymology: A phrasal verb formed from the noun voice-over, which has been used in the entertainment world since the forties for film or television narration which is not accompanied by a picture of the speaker.

History and Usage: The television voice-over, especially by a famous actor, is a well-known feature of advertising in the eighties. Although perhaps used as a technical term in the entertainment industry for almost as long as the noun, the verb voice over only started to enter popular writing at the beginning of the eighties. The corresponding adjective may be voiced-over or voice-overed.

Every single report or interview that she did for that programme was subsequently 'voiced-over' by a man.

Listener 21 Aug. 1980, p. 229

The jet-setting Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds (voiced over by ex-wife/business partner Sylvia Anderson).