The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

dustmen thousands of trips to the side or back of properties and removing the unsightliness of black plastic sacks left out for collection. However, a wheelie bin is usually quite large--up to five feet tall--and this has meant that the whole idea has come in for criticism on two counts: that the elderly and infirm

cannot manage them, and that they encourage people to throw away material which could otherwise be recycled.

To all the freedom fighters who chucked their enthusiastic weight into my battle against the wheelie-bins;...my warmest thanks.

The Times 29 Dec. 1989, p. 16

whistle (Science and Technology) see bells and whistles

white knight

noun (Business World)

In financial jargon, a company that comes to the rescue of one facing a hostile take-over bid.

Etymology: A figurative use that is perhaps a mixed metaphor: on the one hand it relies on the fairy-tale image of the knight on the white charger who appears at the last moment to rescue the damsel in distress, on the other on the imagery of black (bad) and white (good). The white knight is also a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass who is full of enthusiasm but has little common sense:

He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very badly, and he had a queer-shaped little deal box fastened across his shoulders upside down, and with the lid hanging open...'I see you're admiring my little

box,' the Knight said in a friendly tone. 'It's my own invention--to keep clothes and sandwiches in. You see I carry it upside down so that the rain can't get in.'

By the end of the nineteenth century the term white knight was already in figurative use in English to refer to a person who, like Carroll's character, is enthusiastic but ineffectual (but

this seems unconnected with the present development). It had acquired the secondary meaning 'a hero or champion' in more

general contexts in the early 1970s before being taken up in this specialized financial sense.

History and Usage: The first uses of white knight in the context of corporate take-overs date from the very beginning of the eighties; once established, the term was applied specifically to a corporate counter-bidder who comes into play to force a bid battle with the company trying to take over. As the decade progressed, so did the imagery: by 1987 the term

white squire had been coined, for an individual who buys a large shareholding in a company facing a take-over so as to make it less attractive to the bidder. (The squire is a little less

powerful than the knight, and enters the fray at the first rumour of a take-over, whereas the knight charges in at the last moment to save the day.)

Much speculation surrounds the future of the near-40 p.c. equity stake held by the 'white squires' who helped Standard see off Lloyds Bank's œ1.3 billion bid two years ago.

Daily Telegraph 15 Aug. 1988, p. 22

Adia...launched a hostile bid for Hestair...When Hestair found a white knight, BET, Adia refused to enter a bidding war.

Business Apr. 1990, p. 81

whole-body scanner

(Health and Fitness) (Science and Technology) see body-scanner

23.4 wicked...

wicked adjective (Youth Culture)

In young people's slang: excellent, great, wonderful.

Etymology: A reversal of meaning: compare bad. In this case, there might first have been a catch-phrase or advertising slogan so good it's wicked which was later abbreviated to wicked alone; however, it is not unusual for an adjective to be used as an

British defence journal, women members of the Spetsnaz forces have been mingling with the Greenham 'wimmin'...The Greenham 'wimmin' laugh at this suggestion.

Daily Telegraph 23 Jan. 1986, p. 18

Why are these (ignorant) gay men (and sadly sometimes wimmin) stereotyping gayness?...Next time you see a feminine looking womyn...don't show hostility toward her.

Pink Paper 17 Nov. 1990, p. 19

wimp° noun (Politics)

In slang, a feeble, cowardly, or ineffectual person; especially, a public servant who has a grey or weak public persona.

Etymology: Probably ultimately related to whimper. In the twenties wimp was Cambridge University undergraduates' slang for 'a young woman'; when first applied to young men in US slang, it certainly had implications of effeminacy.

History and Usage: A word with a many-stranded history. The present sense seems to have had some currency among college students in the US from about the mid sixties; to them, a wimp was a weedy or effeminate man. During the second half of the sixties this sense became more widespread, passing into British English as well. By the late seventies a slightly different

sense had cropped up in US teenagers' slang: to describe someone as a wimp was to imply that this person was old-fashioned, especially in dress and appearance. The two meanings came together in US slang in connection with the vice-presidential

and presidential campaigns of George Bush at the end of the eighties: when a number of journalists seemed to be trying to gain him a reputation as a wimp, there was some discussion of the implications of the label, from which it emerged that it was as much his background and appearance (typical of the 'Preppie') as his grey image that had prompted it. So frequently was this taunt used that it even came to be referred to as the W-word (by

analogy with F-word) in some sources; Mr Bush sought to counter it in his read my lips speech and policy. Wimp has a number of

derivatives, mostly connected with the connotations of cowardice and spinelessness: for example, the adjective wimpish and the nouns wimpery and wimpishness. In the US during the late seventies and eighties, a phrasal verb with out also developed:

to wimp out is to 'chicken out' or fail to face up to a situation; the corresponding noun is wimp-out.

'We thought the Brits might wimp out. After Libya we hoped that the United States would not have to go out in front again,' said a senior American intelligence official.

Sunday Telegraph 26 Oct. 1986, p. 40

Vice President George Bush is a preppy, despite many mouse-brained journalists' continued attempts to hang the wimp label on him.

Maledicta 1986-7, p. 23

Bush and Jesse Jackson...are battling serious image problems that forced Bush to declare he is not a 'wimp'.

Kuwait Times 18 Oct. 1987, p. 5

That word 'wimp', when used by an American about Mr Bush, is partly a euphemism for upper class.

Sunday Telegraph 12 June 1988, p. 22

WIMPý acronym Also written Wimp, wimp, or WIMPS (Science and Technology)

In computing jargon, a user interface incorporating a set of software features and hardware devices (such as windows (see window°), icons, mice (see mouse), and pull-down menus) that are designed to make the computer system simpler or less baffling

for its user.

Etymology: Formed on the initial letters of Windows, Icons, Mice; the fourth initial is variously explained as standing for Program, Pointer, or Pull-down.

noun: In computing, an area of the VDU screen which can be sectioned off for a particular purpose so that different functions can be carried out and viewed simultaneously in different parts of the screen.

transitive verb: To place (data) in a window; to divide (the screen) into windows.

Etymology: One of a long line of figurative applications of the word window for things which in some way resemble a window in appearance or function; in this case, the effect of so dividing

the screen is to give the user the possibility of looking (as if through a window) into a number of different areas of memory at once.

History and Usage: The earliest uses of window in computing relate to the facility for 'homing in' on a part of a drawing or other graphics so as to display only a portion of it on the screen; this was developed during the sixties. The idea of sectioning the screen for simultaneous display of different sets

of data was worked on by Rank Xerox in the seventies (see WIMPý above); the first references to call such an area of the screen

a window date from the mid seventies. For a short time in the seventies and early eighties, the term viewport (adopted from science fiction) was also used for a window in which a clipped portion of a drawing, or a formatted set of data, was viewed; by the second half of the eighties, though, window seemed to have taken over at least in popular usage. The adjective windowed and action noun windowing are also used.

Thanks to my windowed terminal, I am simultaneously editing the source code in a second window.

Datamation 1 Dec. 1984, p. 17

The screen can be windowed, and the cursor moved between two windows.

Practical Computing Dec. 1985, p. 83

Thursday's...module opens with Mel Slater...talking on dynamic window management, multiple window nesting and the implications for hardware.

Invision Oct. 1988, p. 26

windowý noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Politics)

A period of time, usually of limited duration; used especially in international relations and politics to refer to a limited period during which something may be achieved (a window of opportunity) or during which forces, weapons, etc. are

vulnerable to enemy attack (a window of vulnerability). Also, by extension, a gap in one's timetable; a spare moment which can be earmarked for a particular activity.

Etymology: Another figurative use of window, this time based on the idea that a window represents an opening in an otherwise solid wall. This sense grew out of a figurative use of window in space exploration: since the sixties, the short period of time during which a rocket or satellite can be launched if it is to

reach the required orbit has been known as a launch window.

History and Usage: The phrases window of opportunity and window of vulnerability date from the beginning of the eighties, when

both were used by US negotiators in relation to the arms race between the US and the Soviet Union; both acquired a wider currency as catch-phrases during the eighties. This perhaps explains why, during the second half of the eighties, the word window became a fashionable piece of executives' jargon for a space in one's diary or Filofax; but it is possible that this is just a piece of visual imagery (referring to the small white space surrounded by the many appointments written in on the page).

After the list come the cold calls, which White makes during the crucial half-hour 'window' from 11.45am to 12.15, when some of the initial frenzy has burned off the London markets.

Sunday Express Magazine 26 Oct. 1986, p. 17

Instead of fixing the meeting, you are allowed to issue the delicious Coastal phrase, 'I'll leave you a window.' This hole in your schedule can then be cancelled a few days before the event, and you go through the motions