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1980s
- 1. The 1980s
- 2. Changes in technology… Advances in computer technology introduced a whole new type of specialist lexis… PIN, EFTPOS, PC. Toggle, email, cyberspace, dongle, hackers. N GRAM OF “PC”
- 3. Meaning shifts Swipe. Smart card. Plastic. Virus. Shell suit. Dishes. 1980 (smart card)
- 4. New language/terminology Marketization. Doughnutting. Liberal democrats.
- 5. Pop culture etc lexis MTV. Pac-man. Yuppies. Moshing. Breakdancing. Moonwalking. Acid house. Ghetto blasters.
- 6. More pop culture lexis… Walkmans. Rolling news. Splatter movie.
- 7. medical or related. HIV/aids Safe sex. Abortion pill. Yuppie flu.
Editor's Notes
- Various acronyms and initialisms were created in the 1980s due to the advances in technology, more particularly computer tech. Advances in the financial side of tech had to invent new terms for electronic banking systems and components. Personal Identification Number was abbreviated to PIN. Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale – an electronic payment method one of the first of its kind invented in 1981, used to pay for goods etc via your debit/credit card. PC obviously computer, In the 1980s they started to abbreviate it as it became a more common item. The word toggle became an actual technical term in computer manuals in the 80s, used as a verb for basically pressing the button. E-mail was a new term specifically made for electronic mail, quickly followed by snail mail which was the nickname given to the normal postal service. Cyberspace was a metaphorical nickname which quickly became added into the dictionary. Dongle was a new word used to name a device which you plug into your computer as a means of storage or to connect to wireless broadband, it has now been narrowed to just a usb that u use to connect to the internet. Hackers was a new name given to people who commit fraud or optain restricted access to data using the internet, that eventually was added to the dictionary.
- The verb swipe changed from meaning strike or hit someone to mostly be used in the context of paying for something via debit card. Smart card, initially these words alone mean two different things but once debit cards etc came to popularity in the 1980s they added the word smart before it to differentiate it, now days we add the adjective before the name of any modern electronic item that has multi purposes, eg smartphone smart tv etc. the noun plastic started to shift meaning as not just a name of a material but the name of a payment card. E.g. you would pay by plastic. Virus was also had a change in meaning, a virus was used to describe a faulty or maladaptive program that would mess up the computer’s function, it would be said to be infected, which is another shift of meaning. Shell suit, which is just a matching tracksuit, was a popular nickname for it as they grew in popularity due to the globalisation of dance music hip hop culture etc, before the 80s if you said it people wouldve assumed you meant a suit with sea shells on it. Dishes was a name given to sattelite tv recievers which were a common item in usa eu russia by 1976, however the first british sattelite channel was invented in 1982 april 26th, meaning not everyone wouldve had satellite tv until mid 80s as they wouldve only been able to receive american programmes via satelite.
- marketization wasn’t a new word the first recorded use was 1961, but as you can see in the Ngram it gained massive popularity around 1984 was being used much more frequently than ever before, this may possibly be because the largest accounting firms at that time (known as the big 8) were one of the first to introduce marketization in a professional firm, then other firms and professions followed suit. Doughnutting as a verb meaning to do a tight 360 degrees spin in a vehicle wasn’t added to the OED until 1989, as you can see in this Ngram it became very popular in the 80, around 1986 it spikes and usage grows massively, this may be because of popularity of car based tv programmes in the 80s like dukes of hazard, equaliser and other similar shows where the characters would do doughnutting in a car. Liberal democrats was another new piece of political language, it was a name given to the government part as it shortened its name from social liberal democrats.
- The tv channel MTV was founded august 1st 1981 and the initialism is just an abbreviation of music television. Pac-man is obviously a game, it was invented in 1979, however wasn’t released until 1980, an wasn’t added to the OED until 1991. yuppie was a term that gained massive popularity during the 80s due to a boom in the financial market there became a new kind of business person where young middle class or working class men were becoming rich, the word itself is an abbreviation of “young urban professional” it basically it’s a derogatory word that would be used describe fashionable young business men as you can see from the n gram 1980 was the first ever time the term was invented. The term moshing basically means dancing in a large crowd (or mosh pit) purposely colliding with other people, it became a craze By the mid-1980s, the term was appearing in print with its current spelling. By the time thrash metal bands started to popularise the term by using them in lyrics, however it originally was mash but was misheard and mosh was the term that stuck. Breakdancing was a new word that was the name given to people who break dance, Although the term "breakdance" is used to refer to the dance in popular culture and in the more mainstream entertainment industry, "b-boying" and "breaking" are the original terms. The dance style itself was first defined as a separate style in the 1970s however it rose to popularity in the mainstream media in around 1982 as the dance style suited the style of hip hop and breakbeat which was also becoming popular in the 80s. Another dance move known as moonwalking was a new meaning to the term moonwalk, when Michael Jackson debuted it during a performance of Billie jean in 1983 it became an instant craze and the official name for it. A genre of electronic dance music which was first invented in chicago in early 80s however didn’t reach the party scene of London till the late 80s, it came to popularity around the same time all of the psychedelic “club drugs” came to popularity with it hence the name acid house which was given to the genre by the British tabloids because of the association it had with party goers. Ghetto blaster aka boomboxs were introduced to the american market in late 1970s and hit the streets of england in the early 1980s and came to england the same time the first wave of hip hop breakdancing etc came to england.
- Walkmans were portable casstte players which were the a houshold item for people in the late 80s early 90s, they were basically the ipods of their day, the name was given to the item y sony who created it, later replaced by portable cd player then mp3 player, however all the items of that kind made by sony adopted the name walkman and still are today. Rolling news was the term given to a 24/7 news channel, they began sprouting up in the early 80s in america, people were able to still watch it in england and the first 24hour news in the uk was invented in 1991. the term splatter movie was coined by George A Romero when describing his 1978 movie the dawn of the dead, after that in became the popular term for gory horror films, aand the term became the common names for film series such as Friday the 13th 1980 and nightmare on elm street 1985.
- Aids AIDS was first clinically observed in 1981 in the United States.[26] The initial cases were a cluster of injecting drug users and homosexual men with no known cause of impaired immunity who showed symptoms of pneumonia, a rare opportunistic infection that was known to occur in people with very compromised immune systems. obviously the term safe sex was coined by the government’s scheme to warn/educate teens and the public in general about STIs as a result of the aids outbreaks, as you can see from the n gram the term safe sex was non existent before the 1980s. Along with the safe sex campaign many developments in contraception were invented like the abortion pill, which was developed and tested in april 1980. is a informal derogatory term for chronic fatigue syndrome which is basically a disease that causes you to have severe spells of exhaustion throughout day to day life as it had connorations to being lazy until around 1991 where a report was made in the new york times which swayed the opinion that it was lazyness to it being more physical and the nickname has since died out.