Something fun and mildly educational

[harley]

I saw this today on another website and thought I'd pass it on. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/. It shows you words that were added to the dictionary the year of your birth (or whatever year you choose). A fun way to waste a couple of minutes. Was surprised to see a few like Cosmonaut, artificial intelligence, dune buggy, kegger and va-va-voom in my birth year.

 

[mystang52]

I love unusual History facts, and also word origins. This will consume me for more than a "couple of minutes." Not sure if I should thank you or curse you for what will now be a new obsession for me. The site is now bookmarked.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

I looked only at the years of mine and my wife's birth. As most of you will likely find, I was primarily amazed that words that seem SO COMMON were only introduced in my infancy. However, one other trend stuck out, albeit rarely: Words that were introduced in my infancy that are no longer even needed! For example, here is a word from my wife's natal year: flashcube!!

 

[Koolau]

Interesting. There seems to be quite a contrast between words I would have guessed had been defined significantly earlier and those defined much later for many of the years I looked at.

Example 1952 (a year I was old enough to remember fairly well.)

Autoimmune - I would have expected the word to be defined significantly later.

Hawaiian shirt - Surprised it was not defined at least during WWII

Presidents Day - I would have guessed late 1990's, not 1952!

Golf, Foxtrot, Quebec and others - Did a double take until I saw the definitions were based on their use as code words for (in this case G, F and Q). Became familiar with these code words during flight training but had no idea when they were defined for this purpose.

YMMV

 

[Nemo2]

flashcube!!

Wasn't he a Rapper Superhero?

 

[JoeWras]

Very cool! My year was the year they made it official that people now said, "What's your ZIP code" instead of "What's your zone?"

 

[Rummy]

Ha! 1951 Nerd.....

 

[Boho]

chlamydia

 

[CaptTom]

Nice time waster, thanks!!

But for me, it raised a new question: What year did web designers decide we'd rater scroll through a list of hundreds of four-digit years than just type four digits?

 

[O2Bfree]

Wow, so many scientific terms that I would have thought were around longer.

But for me, it raised a new question: What year did web designers decide we'd rater scroll through a list of hundreds of four-digit years than just type four digits?

Maybe when they realized that users got tired of seeing an error message when they typed in just the last two digits of a year. Or maybe too many users were typing in the wrong year, and it seemed more likely they'd enter the right year when selecting from a list.

 

[harllee]

In my year of birth--"half-bath". Somehow appropriate.

 

[harley]

Nice time waster, thanks!!

But for me, it raised a new question: What year did web designers decide we'd rater scroll through a list of hundreds of four-digit years than just type four digits?

I don't think there are many web designer. Just web developers. So many bad decisions would be avoided if anyone did design. Not jumping to the next field when typing a phone number, having to type VI to get to the VA state abbreviation, tab going to the forgot password prompt instead of to the next field, the year thing, and on into infinity. It reminds me of one of my favorite IT cartoons:

Edit: I just realized I helped hijack my own thread.

 

[harley]

I find it rather karmic that two of the words in my year are Rastafarian and zydeco. Of course my super straight DW has margarita and dexies, so maybe not.