Four letter words
As one does at birthday parties, some friends of mine attempted on Saturday night to find words which have newly appeared in English in the last 50 years or so and which have exactly four letters. (Of course looking up a list of neologisms online would be cheating!)
The only completely new word I’ve found is blog.
Other words since suggested include [to] text [someone], spam and perhaps [the] dole1. All of these are new senses to words, rather than wholly new words.2
Can you add to the list (without cheating)?3
Edit: where possible, make sure that it is a recent addition to the language, perhaps with citation.
Nuke! As in a microwave… that may be a tad more than 50, but not by much.
Comment by Alli — 18 May, 2009 @ 10:48 pm
And WiFi– does that count?
Comment by Alli — 18 May, 2009 @ 10:48 pm
50 years??
To “dump” your girlfriend, “diss” a teacher, call somebody a “nerd” or a “dork”, and then write all about it on a “wiki”.
Comment by Simon Holloway — 18 May, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
Simon’s come in with the goods!
Very nice…
Comment by Joel — 18 May, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
Dumping a girlfriend hasn’t made it to the OED online, nor has dissing. Then again, I couldn’t find a slang sense of dick there either.
Nerd, unfortunately, is accounted for earlier “1951 Newsweek 8 Oct. 28 In Detroit, someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd.” (OED)
[Originally, our birthday party challenge was only back to 1976 (when a certain dictionary had been published), so some of these, from the sixties and seventies (such as dork) would be excluded.]
Comment by Joel — 18 May, 2009 @ 11:12 pm
After some brainstorming – punk, as in punk rock. Fave as in favourite, goon as in alcohol, mosh as in mosh pit and crib as in place of residence.
Comment by Galina — 18 May, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
And pong, the computer game and also the North American drinking game based on ‘ping pong’
Comment by Galina — 18 May, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
Hmm… Barf? Suck? Grok?
Comment by James — 18 May, 2009 @ 11:55 pm
And Pash is definitely my fave!
Comment by Galina — 18 May, 2009 @ 11:57 pm
I seem to remember reading somewhere that “noob” could be the millionth word in English. Another new word is “1337″, although technically it is not composed of four letters.
Bong
a water pipe used for smoking cannabis or other drugs.
- ORIGIN 1970s: from Thai baung, literally ‘cylindrical wooden tube’. (OED)
[or shouldn't it be "ODE" (Oxford Dictionary of English)?]
Apparently also:
(Climbing) a large piton.
- ORIGIN 1960s: probably imitative.
But not a completely new word due to:
a low-pitched sound, as of a bell.
- ORIGIN 1920s (originally US): imitative.
Another word I thought of is “meme”:
- ORIGIN 1970s: from Greek mimma ‘that which is imitated’, on the pattern of gene. (OED)
Man, it’s too bad I missed this party.
Comment by Alex Feigin — 18 May, 2009 @ 11:57 pm
Oh, and how could I forget ‘frot’?
Comment by James — 19 May, 2009 @ 7:24 am
PS Joel leaves unsaid that this was all his idea. In his defence, he didn’t pull out the dictionary.
Comment by James — 19 May, 2009 @ 7:26 am
Never heard the word frot before…
Comment by Joel — 19 May, 2009 @ 8:17 am
I wrote a beautiful post yesterday about noob, 1337, bong and meme. Where is it?
Comment by Alex — 19 May, 2009 @ 5:12 pm
Joel’s comment spam filter can be somewhat aggressive. Maybe it doesn’t like your 1337-speak… damn, now I’ll get blocked
(the real question: are you Upfront or Deferred?)
Comment by James — 19 May, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
Aww sorry Alex (the mysteriously upfront one)… I’ll try tell my filter not to be so rude next time.
Comment by Joel — 19 May, 2009 @ 10:04 pm
alas, ‘pash’ is 19th century…..
Comment by Jen — 22 May, 2009 @ 9:08 pm