GLOSSARY FOR THE ATOMIC AGE

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28262, 27 April 1957, Page 6

GLOSSARY FOR THE ATOMIC AGE

New Words Reveal Our Way Of Life

[Specially written for “The Press” by E. T. BEARDSLEY] TJISTORIANS ana sociologists of the future might not have much material available on which to base their studies of the early atomic age. If not, they might be able to gain some insight into our social customs, mores and culture by reference to our vocabulary. The words we. use show us for what we are and a glossary for the atomic age goes a long way towards revealing our way of life. Such a glossary has been prepared by the publishers of Webster’s Dictionary for this year’s edition of the New York “Herald-Tribune’s” “Information Please, Almanac.” In contains about 550 words which have only recently been introduced into the language, some old words that have acquired new meanings and scientific terms that have passed into the common language.

The basic factor since 1945 has been the cold war, here defined as a struggle between two nations or groups of nations waged by use of political and economic strategy, propaganda and other measures short of war. Thanks to the cold war, and Senator McCarthy, we have numerous new words and expressions. There are the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, brainwashing, collective security, containment, cadre (a nucleus of indoctrinated leaders), cells (Com-munist-type), character assassination, liquidate, loyalty oath, purge (in public services), Red-baiting, satellite, screen, smear and smear cajnpaign, thought control and witch-hunt. Agitprop is defined as a means of spreading propaganda intended to promote militancy among the people.

Closely allied to that group is a series of words that might come under the heading of politics. And what has been basic in politics in many countries since the war? Austerity (a severe or enforced economy) of course. A result of austerity is next, black market. “Creeping” means making inroads or undesired progress (creeping socialism, for example). Then follow deficit spending, fellow traveller, freeze, five percenter (one who undertakes lobbying for businessmen at a fee of five per cent.), a kickback, which is what five percenters and their like receive in cash, party discipline, police State, pressure group and splinter group. Here we might also place double talk and double think, coined by George Orwell in “1984,” socialised medicine, stockpile and welfare state. Megadeaths

Science and the scientific invasion of warfare account for dozens of new words. Two in particular give a horrifying glimpse of what future wars might mean. A megaton bomb is defined as one having an explosive force equal to that of a million tons of TNT. The second term is megadeath. meaning a million deaths. Thus, says the glossary, the power of an atomic bomb may be indicated in terms of megadeaths. We hope not. Most of the scientific and military words that have become more or less accepted have similarly sinister implications, but there is one worthy of a place in our vocabulary. This is howgozit curve, a running graph of the progress of an aircraft’s flight. Music does not seem to have progressed very far since Hiroshima. Then it was swing. Since then we have had to suffer bebop or bop, boogie woogie, calypso, jive and rock ’n’ roll. A combo (group of jazz players) sends (elates) hepcats (addicts) and makes them jive (a wriggly sort of dance).

The atomic age is one in which women are fast reaching full equality with men, though new words applying particularly to women would scarcely indicate this. There are babushka (the kerchief tied over the head and under the chin) bikini, bobbysoxer, cheesecake (photographs intended to display or accent female charms) cincher, cold wave, curvaceous, pony tail, poodle cut, pedal pushers and plunging neckline. Television or TV or video and radio have a host of new words. Audio means sound in TV, an audiopile is a hi-fi (high fidelity recording) enthusiast and audiovisual means both hearing and seeing. There fc closed circuit TV, TV by coaxial cable, colourcast (TV in colour), disc jockey, discophile (record collector), hit parade and newscaster. A tweeter is a small loudspeaker that responds only to high sound frequencies and a wow is a distortion in reproduced sound. The TV successor to the walkie-talkie radio seems likely to become the creepie-peepie. Acronyms But in spite of all the implications our new words raise, the ones introduced into common speech are ingenious and timesaving and if they are good enough they will really become part of our living language. In this category we can include: bird (enthusiast), brush-off (curt dismissal), bump (push a person from his place and take it yourself), buy (agree to), chalktalk (blackboard lecture), chichi (break down), dilly (superior quality), doodle and doubletake (delayed reaction to the importance of something that has at first escaped notice).

The ecdysiast is simply a stripteaser (thank H. L. Mencken for that one). A fast buck is money made quickly without effort, fluff (to bungle or stumble), gimmick or gismo (a trick of device), goofball (a sleeping pill), goobledygook (the involved obscure language often found in official pronouncements), hassle (tussle), hex (jinx), hot (radioactive), junkie (drug addict), needle (vex or annoy), no-show (a passenger who reserves an airliner seat but who fails to claim it without cancelling it), oscar (an annual awand for excellence), private eyes, prefab, rhubarb heated dispute), rumpus room, schmoe (a misfit), screwball, sharp (attractive), signature (a tune or sound effect to identify a particular radio programme) and 64-dollar question. We go beyond smog to smaze (a mixture of smoke and haze), snollygoster (a cad) soap opera, spelunker (cave explorer), spiv, and whammy (a curse). . .There is also another group known as acronyms (words formed from the first or last syllables of the words in a compound). Thus we have jato, from jet assisted

take-off, motel from motorists’ hotel, and gapa, a guided missile, from ground to air pilotless aircraft.

What of our social life? New words are revealing. Take for example book-burning and detectaphone (a telephone appartus equipped With a microphone transmitter for listening secretly). Intellectuals are dismissed as eggheads, doubledomes or longhairs. Commercial becomes a noun meaning the part of a radio or TV programme devoted to advertising. There is Momism, defined as “supposed excessive admiration and sentimentalising of mothers thought to permit a possessive mother to deny her offspring emotional independence.” There is public relations, and a whole range of words connected with the growth and acceptance of psychology. There is shock treatment and roller derby, a free-for-all on skates by tough girls. The names of new drugs and diseases are household words. Automation is the big worry of many. If you try to get away from it all temporarily you may have to breath into an alcometer, a device for testing drunkenness by measuring the amount of alcohol in a sample of exhaled air.