Last week, Merriam-Webster launched a new tool on its website called Time Traveler that lets you explore words by year. In other words, you can select a year, like 1991, and see words that were first recorded in that year. For example, in 1991, the words “mixtape,” “bestie,” and “gift card” appeared in print for the first time—at least as far as the people at Merriam-Webster know. Dictionary makers often find earlier instances of words, and when they do, they update their entries, but Time Traveler is based on the currently known first dates, such as 1697 for “apple pie,” 1900 for “phony,” and 1980 for “gridlock.”
And once you start searching, it’s kind of addictive because it tells you so much about culture.
years of words
Words from 1967
1967 was the first year you could do “aerobics,” ponder “biotech,” go to “B-school” or go on an “ego trip,” take “estrogen replacement therapy,” and live in a “fantasyland.”
Words from 1977
In 1977, you could finally do those aerobics on an “exercise bike,” worry about “bad cholesterol” and “Ebola,” take “cisplatin,” and go on a “guilt-trip” after spending too much time at a “strip mall.”
Words from 1987
In 1987, we were wearing “acid-washed” jeans and carrying around “messenger bags.” Drugs were being used “off-label,” we’d gone from “biotech” to “bioterrorism,” and we were wearing “cross-trainers” to the gym. It was the first year we had “GIFs” (and if you try to tell me it’s pronouns JIF, I will fight you).
Words from 1997
By 1997, we were working out on “elliptical trainers,” working in “cube farms,” posting “emoji,” and writing “judgy” posts on our “Weblogs.”
Words from 2007
The examples get more sparse as you get closer to the present day, but 2007 gave us “hashtags,” “listicles” and the “sharing economy.”
Set aside at least an hour to play, and visit the Time Traveler section on the Merriam-Webster website. Right now, there’s a link to it on their homepage. ‘America in So Many Words’
The site also made me think of a book from 1997 that I liked called “America in So Many Words” by Allan Metcalf and David Barnhart.
In the book, the authors choose one word that was coined in America for nearly every year between 1555 (“canoe”) and 1998 (“millennium bug”).
They noted some interesting trends, saying that in the seventeenth century, the hot topic for new words was nature because the settlers were naming all the new things they came across in North America like corn, catfish, raccoons, and moose.
The authors call the trend in the eighteenth century “independence,” noting new words such as “minutemen,” “cowboy” “veteran,” “immigrant,” and “ticket” as in to vote for a ticket.
They cite expansion as the trend in the nineteenth century, with new words such as “know-how,” “skyscraper,” “downtown,” “commuter,” and “ranch” (a ranch usually being far bigger than a typical farm).
And the twentieth-century trend was science, with words such as “IQ, “rocket scientist,” “goo,” “brainstorm,” and “streamline.”
I love looking at these words and thinking about the times and cultures in which people started using them, and I bet you will too.