The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

from the Walkmans of every librarian on the tube.

New Musical Express 25 Feb. 1989, p. 17

Wherever you go nowadays, you find people with Walkmen, listening to a drizzle of pop music. Has anyone yet investigated the effects of this on the brain, and on

capacity for concentration on words?

Weekend Guardian 8 July 1989, p. 5

Sony Corp. came out with its famous Walkman cassette player. In 1984, it unveiled the Discman...Now comes Sony's Data Discman, a device for reading books recorded on 3-inch optical disks that are capable of storing

10,000 pages each.

Business Week 4 June 1990, p. 110H

Short for wide area network, a computer network (see networký) in which computers over a wide area are enabled to communicate and share resources.

Etymology: The initial letters of Wide Area Network.

History and Usage: The wide area network was developed in the early eighties to perform a similar function to the local area

network (or LAN) but over longer communication links. WAN seems to have been used almost immediately as a pronounceable acronym, probably under the influence of the pre-existence of LAN.

A 'WAN'--wide area network--facility so that your organisation can talk to the computers of other organisations.

Your Business Mar. 1986, p. 47

One only has to have lived through a few disasters to know that an effective network management system can quite literally be worth as much as the network itself. This is why the transition to a corporatewide, LAN/WAN

network can leave many LAN administrators feeling like they're living their worst nightmare.

InfoWorld 14 Jan. 1991, Enterprise Computing Supplement, p. 6

wannabe noun and adjective Also written wannabee (Youth Culture)

In young people's slang (originally in the US):

noun: An avid fan or follower who hero-worships and tries to emulate the person he or she admires, modelling personal appearance, dress, etc. on this person. Also, more generally, anyone who wants to be someone else.

adjective: Aspiring, would-be; like a wannabe; inspired by envy.

Etymology: A respelling of want to be (as in the sixties song I Wan'na Be Like You by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman), treated as a single word which can operate as a noun (someone whose appearance etc. seems to say 'I wanna be like you') or an

adjective.

History and Usage: The noun was first used in the mid eighties to refer to White youths in the US who dressed and behaved like members of Black gangs, but were actually relatively harmless.

It was probably most widely popularized, though, by its application to the female fans of the rock star Madonna, many of whom adopted a style of dress and make-up which almost turned them into Madonna look-alikes. There are also the sporting wannabes, the people who own all the kit that goes with the sport and manage to look the part, but have not yet the ability

to fulfil the role. The adjective wannabe developed during the second half of the eighties.

Scores of Samantha Fox and Linda Lusardi wannabees raided British lingerie shops for skimpy lace and satin undies recently.

Australasian Post 23 Apr. 1988, p. 16

Madonna's appeal to adoring wannabes rests less on her...personal life than her music, a blend of tweaking

Company president David Miller referred to 'dBASE/SQL' as 'the ultimate vapourware, since it's unannounced, undesigned, undeveloped, unknown, has no marketing plan,...nor any release date or pricing.'

Australian Personal Computer Oct. 1989, p. 26

Since groupware began to appear about 18 months ago, most of the programs...try to deliver some new, whizzy benefit to users, such as organizing communications among work-group members.

PC World Oct. 1989, p. 49

FormBase includes Bitstream fontware and supports Postscript, Hewlett-Packard Graphic Language printers. The program can print reports, forms with or without data.

Daily Telegraph 5 Mar. 1990, p. 27

See also RISC

warehouse noun (Music) (Youth Culture)

Mostly in warehouse party: a large, illicitly organized party (usually held in a warehouse or some other spacious building) at which the main entertainment is dancing to popular (especially house) music; similar to an acid house party.

Etymology: Formed by compounding: the parties involve such large numbers of people that a building the size of a warehouse

is needed to accommodate them. A connection is sometimes made with the Warehouse club in Chicago (see house), but parties were already being held in warehouses before the fashion for house music started.

History and Usage: Large parties were held in warehouses in the UK from the early eighties onwards; as the craze for house music spread from Chicago across the US and the Atlantic to the UK in the mid eighties, they became associated with this youth cult in particular. Because of the large concentrations of people at the parties and police suspicions that they were used for

along the Downs in all weathers, well-protected with high boots, waxed jackets and portable parkas.

Antonia Byatt Possession (1990), p. 487

23.2 well safe...

well safe (Youth Culture) see safe

well woman

noun (Health and Fitness)

A woman who undergoes screening tests to ensure that she is healthy; used especially as an atttributive phrase in well woman clinic, a clinic for women which concentrates on preventing disease by carrying out such screening.

Etymology: Well has meant 'sound in health' since the sixteenth century; it is the construction in which it is used here, rather than the meaning, that is new.

History and Usage: Although the idea of a well-baby clinic had been thought of and put into practice as long ago as the twenties, the same principle was not applied to women's health until the late seventies. Throughout its short history well

woman has caused some confusion when applied as an attributive phrase in the plural, with many writers opting for well women in these cases. Soon after well woman tests and clinics had been

set up there was a move towards greater emphasis on preventive medicine generally, giving rise to the well man and well person clinics in the eighties as well.

Saturday's session included a motion urging establishment of 'well women clinics' to help specifically with women's medical problems, underrated in a medical profession still dominated by MCPs.

New Statesman 27 Sept. 1985, p. 7

The college also wants to see special funds made available to enable practices to offer preventive and educational services such as well-woman and well-man

clinics, together with stop-smoking groups.

Daily Telegraph 10 Feb. 1987, p. 2

Our nurses do all the immunisations, run the Well person clinics, and do most of the family planning work.

Which? Oct. 1989, p. 483

Three weeks ago she had made an appointment to take her breast lump to a doctor. But she had done it in a very peculiar way: she had booked in to a private Well Woman Clinic under an assumed name.

Sara Maitland Three Times Table (1990), p. 155

Westlandgate

(Politics) see -gate

wetware (Science and Technology) see -ware

23.3 wheat-free...

wheat-free

(Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure) see -free

wheel clamp

noun and verb Also written wheel-clamp or wheelclamp (Lifestyle and Leisure)

noun: A clamp designed to be locked to one of the wheels of an illegally parked vehicle, thus immobilizing it until the appropriate fine has been paid and the clamp is removed.

transitive verb: To immobilize (a vehicle) by attaching one of these clamps; to clamp. Also, by extension, to subject (a person) to the experience of having his or her car clamped.

Etymology: Formed by compounding.

History and Usage: The wheel clamp was first used in the city of Denver, Colorado, allegedly as long ago as 1949. At that

time, though, it was not known as a wheel clamp: from the late sixties, the device was nicknamed the Denver boot or Denver shoe, and it was not until the eighties, when the idea was widely taken up in the UK, that wheel clamp started to be used as a neutral name for these objects. The metal clamp prevents one of the wheels of the car from turning, and sometimes also positions a sharp spike above the front of the car to deter attempts to drive out of it. Although very unpopular, wheel clamping is very effective and therefore seems likely to remain a part of everyday life in car-based societies.

Right now the world is in a dreadful state what with terrorists, famine and wheel clamping.

Comic Relief Christmas Book (1986), p. 103

His powers of forbearance had been severely stretched the night before when he found himself wheel-clamped outside a restaurant. 'I said something unpleasant to this man and afterwards I felt absolutely awful.'

Sunday Express Magazine 1 Feb. 1987, p. 18

Wheel clamps have recently been introduced in Rome in a move against illegal parking.

Holiday Which? Mar. 1990, p. 73

wheelie bin

noun (Lifestyle and Leisure)

A large refuse bin on wheels; a Eurobin (see Euro-).

Etymology: Formed by compounding.

History and Usage: The wheelie bin first appeared in the UK in about 1986, but both the object and the name seem to have been used in Australia for some years before that. The bins are designed to cut refuse collection costs (an important consideration in view of the privatization of local government services in the eighties); since they are on wheels, members of the public can move them to the front of their properties on the appropriate day for refuse collection in their area, thus saving