Slang comes and goes, doesn’t it? In the ‘80s everything was rad; in the ‘90s it was wicked. And it’s all so evocative – hearing just one “that’s gnarly, dude” transports you right back to the heady days of 1996. Precious memories.
Now Merriam-Webster has put together a Time Traveller tool – an app that tells you a word’s first known use.
And lots of them are kind of surprising. GIF, for example, which seems like an incredibly modern word, was first used in 1987. Chat room, similarly, comes straight from 1986. 18-wheeler – which brings to mind huge modern trucks – was first used in 1934.
Words that seem like they’ve been around forever are also relatively recent – “elephant in the room” only had its first use in the mid-’80s.
Here are some of the best – you can find the year you were born and see which words made it big that year.
1975
- cognitive behavioural therapy
- mobile phone
- playdate
- psychobabble
- trucker hat
1976
- bicycle shorts
- body piercing
- class act
- digital camera
- meme
- skeevy
- ‘tude
1977
- buzz cut
- cringeworthy
- download
- gamer
- gazillion
- karaoke
- money shot
- pig out
- text message
- upload
1978
- bed and breakfast
- bodice-ripper
- eye candy
- MDMA
1979
- bulk up
- channel-hopping
- de-stress
- first world problem
- identity politics
- log off
- smoke and mirrors
1980
- air guitar
- chill out
- comb-over
- diss
- electronica
- high five
- hip-hop
- foodie
- rabbit hole
1981
- boom box
- cred
- dongle
- fist pump
- ghetto blaster
- sleazebag
- trash talk
- uninstall
1982
- boy toy
- couch potato
- cyberspace
- designated driver
- metalhead
- party animal
- phone sex
- skanky
1983
- cyberpunk
- information superhighway
- lap dancing
- mosh
- screenshot
1984
- app
- bi-curious
- death metal
- horndog
- laptop
- wack
1985
- boy band
- crack house
- elephant in the room
1986
- bungee jump
- chat room
- crack baby
- crackhead
- outercourse
- slimeball
1987
- beatboxing
- beer goggles
- BFF
- emoticon
- FAQ
- GIF
- paintball
- techno
- thirtysomething
- virtual reality
1988
- bad hair day
- crop circle
- emo
- f-bomb
- gangsta
- gentleman’s club
- road rage
- unibrow
1989
- air quotes
- beatdown
- latte
- scrunchie
- viral marketing
1990
- geek out
- hoodie
- malware
- shout-out
- spam
- tighty-whities
- twentysomething
1991
- bestie
- brain freeze
- carjacking
- cybersex
- gift card
- soul patch
1992
- arm candy
- buzzkill
- Frankenfood
- man cave
- meh
- PDA
- polyamory
- smack talk
- URL
- weak sauce
1993
- booty call
- click through
- commentariat
- DVD
- fashionista
- game changer
- piehole
1994
- dot com
- metrosexual
- MP3
- pole dancing
- spoiler alert
- web page
1995
- instant messaging
- webcam
- webcast
- wiki
1996
- cloud computing
- face palm
- fist bump
- gastropub
- smartphone
1997
- air rage
- emoji
- friend with benefits
- smackdown
- weblog
1998
- cyberbullying
- flexitarian
- social networking
- webinar
1999
- bling
- blog
- carbon footprint
- chillax
- clickbait
- snark
- vape
2000
- crunk
- geocaching
- speed dating
- TiVo
2001
- bromance
- cankle
- captcha
- twerking
2002
- dubstep
- humblebrag
- parkour
- selfie
- vlog
2003
- baby bump
- binge-watch
- flash mob
- manscaping
- muffin top
- unfriend
2004
- paywall
- podcast
- social media
2005
- microblogging
- sexting
- truther
2006
- bucket list
- crowdfunding
2007
- hashtag
- listicle
- sharing economy
- tweep
2008
- Bitcoin
- photobombing
2010
- gamification
If you want to see the full list – complete with baffling words like ‘mouse potato’ – it’s here.
