hoodie
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1990
Two hundred years ago, it was a kind of crow. Now a hoodie is the outer garment of choice for joggers, boxers, and young people outside shopping centres. The term is first recorded in the OED from 1990. Can you beat that?
Interestingly, just as a
suit is no longer just an outfit but can mean the person inside, a
hoodie has come to refer directly to the young person lurking outside the shopping centre. The OED is preparing a draft entry for this use and has found evidence from 1994. Can you do better?
hoodie
shell-suit
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1989
Does the OED have its finger on the fashion pulse with this one? Was 1989 the birth of this lightweight polyester leisure-wear, or were you wearing one that went by that name long before that?
shell
stiletto
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1959
Technically speaking, this is an abbreviation of
stiletto heel, and it is a word that first teetered into the OED in a New Statesman article from 1959. Surely earlier evidence must exist in a trendier publication, perhaps a fashion mag or catalogue...? That would be one small, stilettoed step for our Wordhunt, one giant leap for the OED.
stiletto
trainer
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1978
Not the person who stands by the boxing ring with a towel, but the soft training shoe. Before 1978 you might have called them
sneakers,
pumps,
plimsolls, or
tennis shoes, but now trainer would seem to be the definitive word in sporting footwear. Are you willing to do some legwork for the OED to track down an earlier citation?
trainer
X Rated
dogging
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1993
The OED is preparing a new entry to cover this curious cultural phenomenon and recent inventive use of the ancient verb
to dog. Meaning ‘the practice of watching people engage in sexual acts in a public space, typically a car park’, there is evidence of the term from 1993. Can you top that?
The origins of the phrase are uncertain. Could there be a link with the verb
to dog, to pursue closely, from the implication that those watching dog the participants’ every move? Or could it be that those taking part would use walking the dog as an excuse for their sojourns.
kinky
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1959
According to the OED, people have been kinky since 1889. But if you were kinky before 1959 you weren’t sexually adventurous, just a bit eccentric. Or were you? The earliest evidence in the OED for this sense is from Colin MacInnes’s book Absolute Beginners, but if you dabbled in a little slap and tickle before 1959 and are prepared to admit to it, you might be able to prove that the word is older.
kinky
marital aid
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1976
Is Burnham-on-Sea Britain’s naughtiest town? We can thank their local Gazette for the first citation of
marital aid, a rather prim and proper sounding euphemism for sex toys, in 1976. Were adverts for these illicit items lurking in the back pages of your local paper long before that? Despite its nuptial connotations it seems unlikely that the word would have appeared on wedding lists of that era...
marital
pole dance
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1992
Did you
pole dance before 1992? Of course, people have danced around poles for centuries, but the modern sense of the word has little in common with the innocent days of the maypole. Defined in the OED as ‘an erotic dance or striptease performed while moving around a specially constructed pole’, the first evidence for this sense is from 1992. Can you do better?
pole
wolf-whistle
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1952; information on the word’s origin
Did this distinctive sign of approval echo around the nation’s building sites before 1952? When did it become known as a
wolf-whistle? The word
wolf has been used to describe a sexually aggressive male since Thackeray’s Vanity Fair in 1847, so earlier evidence of the
wolf-whistle must be out there.
wolf-whistle
One Sandwich Short
bananas
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1968; information on the origins on the phrase
Did you go
bananas before 1968? It’s one of many fruity terms associated with mental incapacity, like
fruitcake and
crazy as a coconut. But what’s so mad about a bunch of bananas? The OED would like you to set their minds at rest by providing them with earlier datable evidence.
banana
bonkers
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1957; information on the origins of the word
Were people bonkers before 1957? Or were they just nuts, loopy, or crackers? The OED has evidence from 1948 of the word being used in Navy slang to mean drunk or light-headed, so there seems to be a connection. But did the word change tack before 1957?
bonkers
daft (or mad) as a brush
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1945; information on the origins of the phrase
Why are you daft as a brush, rather than daft as a mop or a feather duster? Was it a phrase invented by chimney sweeps? Or was it coined by huntsmen in reference to the tail of a fox, an animal traditionally thought to be cunning rather than crazy. Any evidence from before 1945 might help to ease the OED’s brain ache.
brush
duh brain
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1997
Does
duh brain belong in the dictionary? If you can provide enough compelling evidence for this playground taunt the OED might be convinced to create a new entry. The oldest
duh brain they’ve found so far is from 1997, lurking within the pages of J-17 magazine. Do your school books, letters, or diaries prove it was around before that?
A draft entry for this word is in preparation.
one sandwich short of a picnic
WANTED: Verifiable evidence before 1993
This is just one variant of a mass of similar constructions to suggest that a person is slightly crazy. Many of the earlier examples are from Australia, refer to building materials, and date back as far as 1939. But can you find evidence of
one sandwich short of a picnic from before 1993? Or do you have evidence of other creative uses of the phrase?
short